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Data Architects, DBAs, Analysts and Designers rely on state-of-the-art Data Modeling Tools to facilitate and simplify their data Modeling efforts, while maximizing the use of their resources. The Power*Architect software allows these busy technical professionals to perform this most intricate part of their job in a fraction of the time.
SQL Power Group's Power*Architect is an innovative data modeling tool designed primarily for Data Warehouse and Data Mart design. It allows the designer to open multiple concurrent source Database connections, drag and drop source schemas, tables and columns into the data modeling playpen, and forward-engineer the resulting target database and its associated ETL template.
The Power*Architect is a user-friendly DW data modeling tool created by data warehouse designers, and has many features geared specifically for the data warehouse architect, including:
Access any JDBC- or ODBC-accessible source database;
Design every aspect of the target database Data Model;
Compare the database structure of any two databases, highlighting the structural differences and generating the required DDL to synchronize;
Compare the Data Model data structures to an existing target database; Save a snapshot of all source systems' data structures in the project file, allowing data warehouse designers to evolve their target data model remotely;
Forward engineer to Oracle, SQL Server, DB2, PostgreSQL and other databases;
Forward engineer ETL Templates containing source-to-target data mappings;
Invoke ETL Engine to load initial set of data into the target database;
Enable easy centralized installation and updates to multiple end users (using Java WebStartTM technology).
Power*Architect can open multiple source databases concurrently, even those from competing database vendors. Another key feature of the Power*Architect that sets it apart from other data modeling tools is that it remembers the origin of each column, and is capable of automatically generating the source-to-target data mappings.
Whether you're building or maintaining your Data Warehouse data model, the Power*Architect will provide you a complete view of all required database structures and will expedite every aspect of your data warehouse design.
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Power*Architect is a versatile tool for the busy data warehousing practitioner.
Project - a Power*Architect project consists of a view of multiple databases; you can load and save a Project to work on it at leisure.
Driver - Most programs need a distinct driver program to communicated with each different type of database. Power*Architect uses Java-based drivers, which normally come from the database vendor in the form of "JAR" [1] files. You need to inform Power*Architect about each driver before you can use it; do this from the User Preferences panel, under JDBC Drivers (just click Add and browse to the Jar file for your driver). If you do not have the JDBC driver for a given database, you can usually obtain one from the database vendor. If that fails, you can find a directory of databases drivers on Sun's web site .
Playpen - This is the main area of the Power*Architect window, in which you manipulate tables and relationships. You can play here to your heart's content, knowing it will not be saved until you ask the program to save.