Free or inexpensive metadata repository solution?

Question

I have been given the task of either finding or developing a metadata repository for our development group. Since we work for a government agency, there is little or no money available for purchasing an off-the-shelf solution. And, since I am a developer as well, I would rather not build a new system if I don't have to.

We would like to be able to query for dependencies on tables, data elements, databases, etc., and to be able to get an idea of the cost of a change to the design of an existing system. Ideally, we would like to be able to go from the macro level (applications, users) to the micro (tables, columns, indexes, data types).

A browser-based system that we could run on our intranet would be ideal, but we could go with something else.

The most significant requirement is that the solution be as close to free as possible.

Does anyone have any ideas?

Answer 1

I don't think there's anything that would do the application-database linkage. Dia's UML modeller is open enough that you can integrate it with some other data source to do illustrations. This page has a list of open-source tooling that does some of this but most of them are fairly hacky.

Answer 2

Sparx Systems' Enterprise Architect is a fairly good repository tool and it's much cheaper than PowerDesigner, Erwin or anything from Rational. I'm using it (for the first time) at the moment and I'm fairly impressed with it. It's way better than Erwin and probably the best I've worked with in any quantity. You can use a variety of back ends, from a MS Jet database (you can actually open them with Access and poke about) to SQL Server or some other database.

They also discuss Wine fairly copiously in the forums and literature, which gives the impression that they go to some trouble to ensure that it works on that platform.