ER/Studio Data Architect

What do you like best?

Easy to learn and use, wide database support. Has a robust data model version control. Client interface is very customizable.

What do you dislike?

A lot of bugs, specifically with databases like Informix and Apache HIVE. Based on a 3 years of experience technical support representatives are not very professional, even with the vendor's Platinum support subscription. Overall, the tool is failing to stay current and up to date with the latest technology trends and features. Data lineage feature of the tool is very cumbersome to use and does not have automated data lineage harvesting (or reverse-engineering of the data lineage). No API support to extract the metadata or to import new data models. No automated functionality to auto catalog new data models or data model objects. Data model printing does not support PDF format. Data model printing and sharing is difficult overall. Bugs with data types.

Recommendations to others considering the product:

Tool is easy to use. Promises to support a lot of databases, however make sure it adequately supports the databases you are looking to use it with.

Tool does not have an API. Tool does not allow automatically harvest data lineage. Tool's data lineage capability is cumbersome and difficult to use. Tool does not have an automated way to import new database entities. Data model metadata extraction is not automatic, difficult and requires a lot of custom SQL and VB development.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

Data modeling, data lineage and data governance.