Importing databases using extracts from DB reverse-engineering programs

[tomschenkjr]

The process of uploading a new database into the platform is rather complicated, especially if one hopes to document a large universe of databases. While the platform does a good job of displaying information, burdensome import procedures Meanwhile, a number of popular software programs will reverse-engineer a database schemas and provides a good first-step.

It would be ideal if one could (1) reverse-engineer databases quickly using software; (2) export that reverse-engineered schema; (3) upload that extract to ; (4) have parse and extract the relevant information.

We will begin to incorporate compatibility with Oracle Data Modeler and bulk-importing data obtained from the Data Modeler's "Export to CSV" option. Oracle Data Modeler is free and compatible for Oracle, MySQL, and Access databases. For City of Chicago operations, this will cover a large portion of the city portfolio.

Other platforms are also good candidates for export-to-upload functionality, such as ERwin or SQuirreL.

[tomschenkjr]

The development team has begun work on this feature. Specifically, beginning to allow the ability to upload CSV exports from Oracle Data Modeler to Metalicious.

We believe this feature will speed-up the documentation process for the City of Chicago and will be useful for any other organization attempting to document their systems.

We will only work on Oracle Data Modeler capability, but we welcome anyone who wants to work on compatibility for other programs (e.g., Erwin) as that will be equally useful.