Why would I want to use Oracle Designer as opposed to simply maintaining SQL scripts and storing them in a version control system such as subversion? I need to decide if it is worth the effort to reverse-engineer an existing database into Designer. It seems like it would be easier to store DDL scripts along with the application source code in subversion. The policy of my organization is to manage all database schemas using Designer. I'm all for compliance if there is some sort of ROI, but I am not able to see how there would be any ROI by reverse-engineering an existing database into Designer.
+1
A:
Some benefits of using Designer:
- easy to browse the table definitions, constraints etc.
- graphical tools to show tables and their relationships
- impact analysis tools
- generation of DDL for new/altered table definitions
Whether this makes its use worthwhile depends on how much your orgnaisation makes use of these benefits. My organisation uses Designer to manage a very large (thousands of tables) database; for a smaller database the benefits may be smaller.
Tony Andrews
2009-03-21 12:21:17