The Entity Relationship (ER) Modeling Tool

A visual way to interact with and script database schema.

Entity-relationship models are diagrams that visually represent database objects and the relationships between them. They can be tremendously useful if you need to model a new database, understand or even reverse engineer an existing database. In Aqua Data Studio, you can do much more than simple represent a model — you can fully edit diagrams and export your model as functional SQL scripts. You can also share and modify them with colleagues, or print enlarged and laminated diagrams for use as a poster or quick reference.

Why use the ER Modeler?

The Entity-Relationship (ER) Modeler built into Aqua Data Studio is as full featured as many commercial standalone products on the market and uses standard Information Engineering (IE) notation. It allows you to visualize data structures and then create, explore, detail, and modify database schemas. Using the ER Modeler can significantly reduce your development time and increase your understanding of databases that you are currently work with.

There are 3 primary uses of the ER Modeler, depending on your needs and how far along your database has developed.

1) Model a Database From Scratch (Forward Engineering)
The classic use of an Entity-Relationship Modeler is to design or model your database visually before you enter a single line of code. The Entities and Relationship palettes in Aqua Data Studio allow you to see and map out relationships between each of the entities involved in your database. Once your visual model is complete, ADS can instantly insert the SQL script necessary to create your database. This is often called forward engineering.

2) Clean Up A Database Mess (Reverse Engineering)
Imagine you walk into a company with several complex databases and are asked to reverse engineer them to produce practical models. The ER Modeler in Aqua Data Studio is capable of producing an Entity-Relationship diagram from existing databases, complete with foreign key relationships. You can further save, annotate and distribute the models you create.

3) Visually Understand a Database
In order to write effective SQL queries, you must understand the entity relationships in the database you are referencing. The ER Modeler will allow you to create, annotate and distribute visual models of your databases that can be shared with other employees or collaborators on your project. Taking advantage of a visual model can cut down training time and costs, and allows users to write more effective SQL queries to extract relevant data.

The ER Modeler works with every database you already access in Aqua Data Studio, regardless of vendor or version. Sharing a diagram with a team and collaborating on schema changes is easy using integrated support for Subversion (SVN) and CVS version control clients.

ER Modeler Features

Layout There are nine layout algorithms to view entities quickly and easily.
Live SQL Preview Quick DDL generation and preview of entities while designing.
Share Your Models At any time you can save, modify, annotate and share diagrams with other colleagues using integrated Subversion SVN and CVS version control.
Print Diagrams and Save and as Images Print full-color, multi-page diagrams for use as a poster for quick reference. Diagrams can also be saved as a JPG or PNG image for inclusion in word processing documents or presentation slides.