PLATINUM ERwin is a powerful, easy-to-use database design tool. It delivers extraordinary productivity in the design, generation, and maintenance of high-quality database applications.
 
From a logical model of your information requirements and business rules that define your database, to a physical model optimized for the specific characteristics of your target database, ERwin lets you visualize the proper structure, key elements, and optimized design of your database.
 
More than just a design tool, ERwin is also a powerful database development tool, automatically generating tables and thousands of lines of stored procedure and trigger code for all leading databases. Its breakthrough Complete-Compare technology allows iterative development keeping your model synchronized with your database at all times. By integrating with leading development environments, ERwin also speeds the creation of data-centric applications.
 
ERwin scales across the enterprise by integrating with PLATINUM ModelMart. This powerful model management system lets database designers, application developers, and end users share ERwin model information. By dividing, sharing, and reusing designs across development efforts, modeling productivity can be maximized and corporate standards can be established.
 

 
PLATINUM ERwin provides a central blueprint that ensures consistency, reuse, and integration of all your company data.
 
Set the Standard for Modeling and Design Productivity
ERwin makes it easy to design a database. Database designers just point and click to create a graphical E-R (Entity-Relationship) model of all their data requirements and capture business rules in a logical model, displaying all entities, attributes, relationships, and key groups. You can even extend ERwin using its unique User Defined Properties to capture any additional information important to your business directly in the model.
 
Sophisticated modeling capabilities help you design a better database. For example, attribute manipulation lets you drag-and-drop attributes from one entity to another, making changes, and normalizing "on the fly." On-diagram editing lets you change models in place without opening dialogs. Relationship navigation lets you move quickly across large models to pinpoint an entity's parents or children. And, model validation reports let you easily check your design.
 
Much more than a "drawing tool," ERwin automates the design process in an intelligent way. For example, ERwin enables the creation of a dictionary of reusable attributes, ensuring consistent names and definitions across your database design. Database views are maintained as integrated model components, allowing changes in the base tables to be automatically reflected in the view definition. Automatic key migration guarantees the referential integrity of your database.
 
ERwin also lets you conquer large enterprise models by dividing them into smaller, more manageable subsets that let individual modelers focus on specific subject areas. Stored displays let you store multiple views of the same subject area, to communicate with different audiences.
 
ERwin data models can be edited, viewed, and printed in a variety of ways. ERwin comes with RPTwin, an easy-to-use, graphical, banded report writer and a built-in report browser with pre-defined and custom reporting options, providing complete control over the appearance and content of reports. In addition, a unique template interface lets you apply design standards and display preferences to all of your models.
 

 
ERwin's independent attribute browser lets you reuse attributes across your model.
 
Generate A Database Automatically
Not only is ERwin the best way to design a database, it's also the fastest way to build one. An ERwin design is optimized for the physical characteristics of your target database. Unlike other tools, ERwin automatically keeps your logical and physical designs synchronized and easily transforms logical constructs, such as many-to-many relationships, into physical implementations.
 
ERwin establishes a live, native connection between your database design and database that allows both forward and reverse engineering. Using this connection, ERwin automatically generates tables, views, indexes, referential integrity rules (primary key, foreign key), defaults, and domain/column constraints. ERwin includes a set of optimized referential integrity trigger templates and a rich macro language that lets you customize your own triggers and stored procedures. Thousands of lines of code can be generated automatically dramatic proof of the productivity of model-based development.
 
Volumetric calculations let you accurately estimate the initial size and growth of your database or data warehouse, enabling the efficient allocation of system resources and capacity planning.
 
Your database can be designed and implemented without writing a single SQL CREATE TABLE or INDEX statement. And because the physical design is driven by a descriptive logical model, your application is completely documented from the start. ERwin can also reverse engineer an existing database, drawing a data model directly from the system tables. This provides an easy way to understand the structure and content of an existing application. ERwin supports leading relational SQL and desktop databases, including Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase, DB2, and INFORMIX. The same model can be used to generate multiple databases, or to convert an application from one database platform to another.
 

 
ERwin's report browser lets you select from a rich set of pre-defined reports or easily define reusable, custom reports.
 
Support Iterative Design with Complete-Compare
Complete-Compare is a breakthrough technology from PLATINUM that changes the way modeling tools and databases interact. When any change is made to either the model or database, Complete-Compare provides a comprehensive comparison of all differences. By highlighting any discrepancies, changes can be migrated from model-to-database or database-to-model. ERwin also automatically generates alter scripts to update any database while preserving existing data. Complete-Compare keeps the model synchronized with the database at all times.
 

 
Complete-Compare automatically detects any differences and allows changes to be migrated from model-to-database or database-to-model.
 
Design Data Warehouses Using Dimensional Modeling Techniques
The performance and usability of your data warehouse is determined by the quality of its underlying design. ERwin supports Star Schema and Snowflake dimensional modeling techniques, allowing you to seamlessly design all of your transactional systems, data marts and data warehouses in one integrated environment. Use ERwin's dimensional modeling rules to design Fact, Dimension and Outrigger tables. The model captures and documents a rich set of information about the warehouse, including data sources, transformation logic and data management rules.
 

 
ERwin supports dimensional modeling techniques to help you design high-performance data warehouses.
 
Speed Application Development
ERwin also integrates your database into the application development process. By linking with leading client/server and web development tools, ERwin synchronizes your back-end database with front-end forms, and high quality applications come to life faster. ERwin also features broad multi-client support, improving the productivity of corporate application developers who use client/server development environments. ERwin can automatically generate native data access components directly from the data model, jump-starting your development with PowerBuilder, Visual Basic, or PROGRESS.
 
Integrate with Paradigm Plus
ERwin is integrated with PLATINUM Paradigm Plus, a UML-based component modeling tool that helps you design, generate, and maintain high quality applications. Together, ERwin and Paradigm Plus provide an integrated solution that enables you to accomplish both component and database design, accelerating the development of component-based applications.
 
Scale to the Enterprise with ModelMart
ERwin integrates with ModelMart, PLATINUM's model management system, to allow everyone in your organization to access, share and reuse ERwin objects and models. ModelMart's comprehensive set of model management features including impact analysis, versioning, submodeling, and model merging enables developers, project managers, and standards administrators to efficiently work together in a manner that does not slow down the individual modeler.
 

 
ERwin's integration with PLATINUM Paradigm Plus enables organizations to more easily reuse and share data and application components, keeping your data model aligned with your component model and application generation.
 
Succeed at the Hub of Design Integration and Publishing
Through ModelMart, ERwin data models can be integrated with business process models from PLATINUM BPwin, so designers can map corporate objectives and processes to the information architecture that supports their business.
 
PLATINUM Model Navigator provides dynamic, read-only access to ERwin and BPwin models with full reporting capabilities. PLATINUM Model Web Publisher provides a simple way to automatically publish models and related definitions as web documents.
 
Technical Specifications
Application Software Compatibility:
NetDynamics, PowerBuilder, PROGRESS, Visual Basic
 
Database Compatibility:
CA-Clipper, CA-OpenIngres, DB2 for MVS and DB2 for OS/390, DB2/400, DB2 UDB, dBASE, FoxPro, HiRDB, Informix, InterBase, Microsoft Access, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Paradox, Rdb, Red Brick Warehouse, SAS, SQL Anywhere, SQLBase, Sybase, Teradata
 
Operating System Compatibility:
Windows NT, Windows 95, Windows 98
 
Technical Requirements:
Minimum 10 MB hard disk space, 16 MB RAM (32 MB RAM recommended for large models)