Data Mapping tool

[aravindk]

Hello all,

We are working in a data migration project, and I am looking for a tool that can help me with data mapping. I am not talking about an ETL tool. We already have DataStage for that purpose. What I am looking for is any tool which can download the tables/fields etc and allow me to map between one database and another and also document the mappings.
Right now we are just cutting and pasting the fields into Excel. I am sure there is got to be some better ways in doing it. Not really sure where to dlook. How are you all doing when it comes to data mapping?

Regards,

 

[kishleo]

may i know what kind of mappings you talking about between databases? is it direct?

Kishore MCDBA

 

[sh4kil]

I've not used it extensively but did have a quick go with Visio and it does seem to do the trick.

 

[tbt102]

hi aravindk,

I'm am now faced with the same situation you mentioned above. Did you get a solution/tool?

Thanks in advance for any help

 

[gorelikalex]

I am very faimiliar with this problem. I was co-founder and CTO of Acta (an ETL company aqcuired by Business Objects). After I left Acta, I have done several years of consulting in the field on integration and data warehousing projects and was very frustrated with how manual, painful and error prone the process of mapping was. Thus, I have spent the last couple of years with a small team of dedicated developers on a product to automate the mapping process.

Our product, Exeros Data Mapper, not only helps provide a productive environment for storing, annotating and validating the mappings, but does automatic discovery of the mappings! Of course, the automatic discovery is not 100%, but we have been able to get about 80% in all our field trials.

Exeros is still in stealth mode (i.e., we have not announced the product, so you will not find any information on the web), but if anyone is interested in more details, please do let me know (alex@exeros.com).

thanks. alex

 

[MDXer]

I recently had simliar needs and tried out Embarcadero ERStudio 6.0 and found it to be a great tool. It will allow you to reverse engineer the dba and will generate scripts needed to create the objects for various DB platforms. Will also create exstensive Datadictionary and db documentation.

http://www.embarcadero.com/

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[MDXer]

Alex,

I would be very intrested in seeing or even demoing your tool. Currently I am on a project where we are constantly adding new source systems to a DW and the data mapping and documentation of the mappings can in itself be a fulltime project.

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[Elsebet]

I have downloaded and tried CA's ERwin Data Modeler.
It does the reverse engineering of your database also, however actually manipulating the tables seemed quite clunky to me. It certainly was not simple and clean like Visio. Perhaps it has more power and functionality which I didn't need for my simple tasks of just making data models of existing tables/relationships. I also tried Sybase's PowerDesigner and it seems easier to use but the finished diagrams are not as "pretty". It also can reverse engineer the database, and unlike Erwin you can specify only certain objects if you wish. Erwin only allows you to filter based on tablespace or owner basically. Being that I am new to both products and have not done extensive data modeling my opinions aren't expert, so take that into consideration.

Neither tool has the ability to save your diagrams in anything but their proprietary format, although I think ERwin let you save in XML.

ERwin: [link]http://www3.ca.com/Solutions/Product.asp?ID=260[/url]
Powerdesigner: [link]http://www.sybase.com/products/enterprisemodeling/powerdesigner[/url]

 

[anvi]

Erwin has some specific data mapping functionalities, but in my opinion they do not cover all the needs of a complex data warehousing environment.
For this reason I wrote my own tool, using Access.
Some of the basic features that should be present in a data mapping application are:
- Univocally identify all source and target fields (including the name of the subject area they belong to)
- Initial load of source and target fields definitions
- Subsequent loads; both the source and target can have new, modified or deleted fields. All the changes must be handled and logged.
- Identify and document fields that can not be mapped
- Extensive reporting, based on metadata gathered


Hope this helps


Andrea Vincenzi
Data Warehouse Consultant

http://www.olap.it

andrea.vincenzi@tiscali.it