Hi,

I know various posts asked re "best tool", but I'm not sure exactly what I need yet, and did not find the answers in the these posts.

I have designed many relational databases, and some of them large, and never needed a tool. My next project however is huge, and the logical model is heavy and VERY object oriented. The coding will be object oriented for sure (most likely .Net). The database will be MySQL.

What I am looking for is software that would allow me to map the logical section, object oriented. If possible, to create the tables from that logical design (although I'm sure I'll be manually changing everything to add imrpove efficiency...).

Question 1: Does logical design modeling automatically mean OO modeling? Or not necessarily?

Question2: Which software is recommended?
- Rational Rose?
- Does ER/Studio do this?
- FabForce Db Designer for MySQL ?
- Other software?
http://www.databaseanswers.com/modelling_tools.htm has sooo many options!

Again, I have never used such software so I do not know what features I'm looking for!!

Question 3: What features should I be looking for in the software?
- Obviously intuitive interface
- Logical Design (OO)
- Physical Design (relational db)
- Convert OO Logical-> Relational Physical (even possible?)
- What else is important in such software?

Price is an issue, it is coming out of my own pocket, but if the software saves me time...

Will appreciate any experienced feedback, thanks very much!

First, Rational Rose sux. We spent $25,000 on licenses and the thing couldn't even reverse engineer correctly and talk about a memory hog. ER Studio is alright but somewhat clunky to work in.

I highly recommend Sybase's PowerDesigner. It sounds like I'm doing something very similiar to your project except we're coding in java. I started by generating a logical datamodel then converted it to a physical model and then used the physical model to generate the object model which in turn generated the value objects for the data access layer portion of our java framework. Anything you can do in the the tools gui can be accessed via API. This is very powerful and if you don't understand what I'm talking about look it up. It will make your life a lot easier.

The only bad thing about PD is there is a lot of stuff in it and takes a little while to learn but it's well worth it. Also, they have good forum support . Check it out at sybase.public.powerdesigner.general

zkenet,

First of OO does NOT have a logical data model, only principles and good practice guides.

Relational Theory is the logical data model, and it is from this model that you should build your business data model.

As a rule.. NEVER start your business data model from an OO basis. Relational first, then let the fluff being!

Any ER tool is a good start....