Reverse Engineering

[Jeff]

I've been told to purchase a CASE tool that will help me reverse engineer
an existing SQL Server 7.0 database with a front-end VB application. I want
to add some documentation and make some design changes (naming conventions,
add referential integrity in some places, etc.) Does anybody have any favorites
or suggestions? I've been reading about ERwin, ER/Studio, DataArchitect,
etc. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

[Craig Clearman]

Jeff,

>Does anybody have any favorites or suggestions? I've been reading
>about ERwin, ER/Studio, DataArchitect, etc.

In truth, I believe that they are all substantially the same.
Generally, I like ERWin best, but it currently has the weakest layout
engine. (In other words, you'll want to move just about every object
that it draws for you). I have heard that the next version does a much
better job at this, though.

DataArchitect is really just missing one piece that annoys me: no
compare utility (at least none that I've ever found).

My recommendation would have to be ERWin. Just recognize that it will
take a while to lay out your database from the beginning, because it
doesn't do a good job for you.

Ciao, Craig