review: Power*Architect Data Modeling Tool
Power*Architect Data Modeling Tool
The need: When you have a lot of databases that must have the schema synchronized, it can get difficult. At work, when I finish making changes in our development database, I need to roll out the schema changes to our other 10+ databases.
Old solution: Keep track of all the “ALTER” statements in a text file. Then apply them to every database. Inevitably something gets missed. Oh the fun.
New solution: Power*Architect Data Modeling Tool by SQL Power. Just one part of this application is the ability to compare data models! It’s EXTREMELY simple to compare data models from two databases and have Power Architect output the SQL statements needed to make the older database match the newer.
Download Power Architect from the google source code link: http://code.google.com/p/power-architect/
Once you install the application, go to the “Connections” menu and add your database server connections. Then to compare data models, go to the “Tools” menu and click “Compare DM”. Comparing data models could not be any simpler.
Power Architect seems to natively support Oracle (8i,9i,10g), PostgreSQL, SQL Server (2000,2005), MySQL, DB2, Derby Embedded, HSQLDB and SQLstream.
This is a VERY powerful tool! I am looking forward to learning more about the power of this program.
