They have made it a lot easier, and they've done a lot, but there is probably still room for improvement in terms of the ease of presentation back to the business. So, that's probably a constraint with erwin. DM's eventual target is a database, which means you actually have to dot all the Is and cross all the Ts, but in a conceptual model, you don't often know what you're working with.

'I still use Visio for conceptual modeling, and that's mainly because it is easier to change things, and you can relax some of the rules.

So, being able to have the same underlying model but only display portions of it at a time is extremely useful.' If you had 14 subject areas, 1,000 entities, and 6,000 columns, you can't quite understand it all at once. We are able to divide the information into subject areas, and we can divide the data landscape into smaller chunks, which makes it easier to understand. Another valuable feature is being able to rearrange the model so that we can display it to users.

'Being able to point it to a database and then pull the metadata is a valuable feature.

'The price of erwin Data Modeler is very expensive, in particular for this part of the world.'.

'There are no costs in addition to the standard licensing fees.'.

There are other products out there which do have end user browsers available and allow them to access data models via the data modeling tool.' This would not be to make any changes, but just to visually look at what exists.

'An issue right now would be that erwin doesn't have a freely available browser (that I am aware of) for people who are not data modelers or data engineers that a consumer could use to look at the data models and play with it.

Therefore, they should probably have a pricing for people like me who want to just use the solution as an independent consultant, trying to get started. I would like to keep my ability to use the tool. I would love to personally buy a copy of my own and have it at home, because the next job that I'm looking at is probably project management and I might not have access to the tool. I haven't talked to erwin people yet, but I'm going to suggest to them that they could perhaps think of having an entry-level product that is priced a bit lower, and then, you can buy the extra suite.' I get the impression that there was a price jump when it was spun off from CA as a separate company, which is understandable, but it could sometimes be a barrier in some organizations picking it up. In the mid-2000s, it was something like 1,200 AUD a seat. About three years ago, in another organization, I have this memory of 6,000 AUD a seat or something like that, but I am not sure.

'I don't specifically know what we're paying now.

Erwin data modeler standard edition