Consic Software Engineering

Consic Software Engineering is a software development company for industrial quality management, based in Kusterdingen, Germany. Stefan Heymann, co-founder of Consic has been using DeZign for Databases since 2003. In DeZign they found a good database modeling tool that supports all the databases they need, and an important tool for the development of their database based products.

Selecting DeZign

In 2003, Consic needed an Entity Relationship Modeling (ERM) tool, because they found that modeling without such a tool was a lot more tedious, time consuming and error prone. They searched for a tool that was reasonably priced and was as complete as possible. After downloading a trial version of DeZign for Databases, they found that it met their needs and decided to purchase. As Stefan Heymann explains: “I looked at other tools when I wanted to purchase an ERM tool for Consic, I don’t remember which tools these were, but DeZign won pretty quickly. The price-feature ratio of DeZign for Databases was right”.

Developing software with DeZign

DeZign for Databases is used for product development at Consic, for example their product Consic METER, standard software for quality control in industrial production. Stefan Heymann explains how DeZign for Databases is used to develop products: “We used DeZign to model the database and use it since then to model all alterations to the database structure. So every time we introduce a new concept to the software, DeZign is used to include the concept into the database structure. Then we create a script for new databases and an ‘alter database’ script to alter the existing databases of our customers”.

Visual modeling

“We constantly add features to our standard software products. Adding a feature means: adding tables, fields, and foreign key relations to the database structure. With DeZign I can do the modeling process with a visual tool rather than a text SQL script. So it helps me to visualize and memorize the new structure. This way, the developer can get a much better ‘feel’ for the new structure”.

Use of scripts

“When the modeling is done, we need two SQL scripts: one to build up a new database from scratch. And the other to update existing databases. DeZign is able to create these scripts on demand. As we don't use DeZign to manage Stored Procedures, we still have some manual work to do, but the whole process is fast and straightforward”.

Multiple databases

“Even though Firebird is our ‘main’ database, we occasionally use DeZign to create models for projects that support MySQL or Oracle databases. Being able to use the same tool for these other databases is a great plus”.

Reverse engineering

“From time to time we also have to deal with databases from other vendors in integration projects. The reverse engineering features of DeZign then help us to visualize the database structure, to get a better understanding of the structure faster”.

Overall conclusion

Stefan Heymann, from Consic, concludes: “Even though there are some things that could be improved, DeZign has become an important development tool for us that we use quite often”.