ER/Studio conversion service for the FIB-DM Model is nearly ready #FIBO

George McGeachie

The free version of the Financial Industry Business Data Model has been downloaded many times – it’s managed using the SAP PowerDesigner modelling tool, and users of other data modelling tools need to import the PowerDesigner Logical Data Model that is supplied. There are two concerns here:

  • FIB-DM is a very big model with some deep super/subtype hierarchies
  • even if your tool can import a PowerDesigner model, the chances are that the import doesn’t work perfectly

If your tool of choice is Idera ER/Studio Data Architect, you can use the built-in metadata import feature to import the PowerDesigner model, but I know that you won’t be happy with the result, so I’m building a new service to help you make the transition a happy one! In addition I’ll be providing some useful features for ER/Studio, similar to those in The CDM LDM Productivity model extension.

The left-hand side of the following image is the model created when you import the FIB-DM PowerDesigner model into ER/Studio Data Architect; the right-hand side is the model after it has been improved. Use the slider to see the difference!

You can see a couple of key differences here.

  • the PowerDesigner package hierarchy is flattened by the ER/Studio import, and all the package names have been changed. This is a big deal in a model with over 260 packages.
  • the fonts and line styles in the diagram need to be changed to make the diagram more readable. This is also a big deal, as there are over 260 diagrams.

There’s much more below the surface that needs to be fixed, such as:

  • the attachment names in the Data Dictionary
  • incorrect conversion of data types

I suspect that I have an advantage over most organisations that need an ER/Studio version of the FIB-DM model – I also have access to PowerDesigner. I can make changes to the FIB-DM model before importing it, such as renaming the packages using a bespoke model extension, then use a macro in ER/Studio to rename the resulting submodels. I can export details of the Attributes from PowerDesigner, and use that information to correct the data types in ER/Studio.

If you’re interested in finding out more about this new conversion service, please go to the contact page and get in touch.

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