Islandia, New York-based software vendor CA Inc. released on Monday a new version of its ERwin Data Modeling Suite now integrated with data profiling technology that makes it the “hub” of an organization’s database management initiatives, a company executive said.
The data profiling capability in version 7.3 allows data architects to perform cross-system analysis “so you can be integrated with your models, be it with business intelligence platforms, data warehouses, understanding your legacy or application development,” said Sean Graham, vice-president of software engineering for data modeling at CA.
The integrated technology is from Santa Clara, Calif.-based data relationship discovery and management vendor Exeros Inc. The suite is being targeted at midmarket to Global 2000 companies.
CA is also boasting a low price point for the updated suite, a factor Graham said should prove especially attractive to companies given tight spending as a result of the current economy. “It helps them have low cost tools as well as lower the costs in trying to climb this data evolution,” he said, referring to the fact that companies are ever more strategic about their data.
Purchasing the integrated suite would certainly be cost-effective, and in fact, in the right condition, would be very advantageous, said Russ Conwath, senior research analyst with London, Ont.-based Info-Tech Research Group Ltd. “For those organizations with more than a few source system environments, the ability is to have one tool that gives you a unified view of your data platform is very powerful,” he said.
Conwath agreed that given tight IT budgets, IT managers have an additional tool in their “arsenal” to do more with less money and resources.
Other enhancements in version 7.3 include extended database support for Teradata, SQL Server 2008 and DB2 z/OS v.9; metadata exchange capabilities with data management tools like Oracle Business Intelligence, Cognos, SAP NetWeaver Master Data Management; and, support for application development with Microsoft Visual Team System Edition 2008.
Technology suites like ERwin Data Modeling is not just useful for viewing enterprise data holistically, said Conwath, but also for the development of databases and database applications “as well as for after the fact, with troubleshooting it’s highly, highly desirable.”
The advantage of the integrated capabilities in a single suite, said Conwath, is it gives organizations “economy of time and scale” so instead of relying on point solutions, data architects can view all their enterprise data “and tie that now together with real data from the actual systems and be able to link that back with the original design intent.”
