data modeling software

[Dale Fye]

Does anybody have any recommendations for any free or very inexpensive data
modeling software?

I could swear I read a post a while back that contained a reference to a
good, free, data modeling tool, but cannot find the post again.

I've used ErWin in the past, but my current job has no modeling tools, and
is not inclined to purchase any. I'm currently designing my database in
Access and would prefer to have a tool for this purpose.

 

[Jeff Boyce]

Dale

I've tried various tools and keep coming back to Access! What are your
"requirements"?

Regards

Jeff Boyce
Microsoft Office/Access MVP

 

[Dale Fye]

Jeff,

I'm just not overly enthralled with the relationships window in Access.

Some of the other tools make modeling a little bit easier, as you design the
logical/physical structure in the design view, and can then either generate
the tables or DDL for generating them (one, selected tables, or the whole
database) at a time. If I recall, some of them (ErWin, Rational Rose, ...)
even allow color coding of the tables in the model, to allow you to show
relationships in that way as well.

I saw a blog somewhere yesterday where the author mentioned he likes to use
Visio to model, and I must admit, I had not thought of that. I can probably
locate a legitimate copy of that in my organization.

Dale

 

[Piet Linden]

Jeff,

I'm just not overly enthralled with the relationships window in Access.

Some of the other tools make modeling a little bit easier, as you design the
logical/physical structure in the design view, and can then either generate
the tables or DDL for generating them (one, selected tables, or the whole
database) at a time.  If I recall, some of them (ErWin, Rational Rose, ....)
even allow color coding of the tables in the model, to allow you to show
relationships in that way as well.

I saw a blog somewhere yesterday where the author mentioned he likes to use
Visio to model, and I must admit, I had not thought of that.  I can probably
locate a legitimate copy of that in my organization.

Dale

Only downside to Visio is that you need the Professional version to do
data diagrams, IIRC. (Well, the wizard that reads your database and
cranks out the diagram for you.)