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Krystian - 05 Feb 2005 08:50 GMT

Just recently I got hired by a large company to evaluate and document a
large banking system written in COBOL and stored on the mainframes with
DB2. The current documentation is very poorly written, so I basically
need to start from the scratch and find out how everything works with
little help from others. I am going to need a tool that would allow me
to pull all tables from the DB2 so that I could make E-R Diagrams.
Also, I'd like for this tool to allow me to be able to create data-flow
diagrams on many levels. The idea is to completely document the system
and all of its modules and processes.

Does anyone know what might be a good candidate?

I am in the process of downloading for the evaluation purposes Sybase
Power Designer and Oracle Designer. Is there anything else? Any input
or recommendation would be highly appreciated.

Krystian

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Mark A - 05 Feb 2005 15:31 GMT

> Just recently I got hired by a large company to evaluate and document a
> large banking system written in COBOL and stored on the mainframes with
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
>
> Krystian

I know that PowerDesigner and ERWin will take DDL and build an ER physical
database design model from that. I don't know about Oracle designer.

Visio actually has some capabilities to do the same. I have tried it against
DB2 for LUW, but not DB2 for z/OS (mainframe).

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Buck Nuggets - 05 Feb 2005 16:10 GMT

Embarcadero is pretty popular these days.

Erwin used to be a good product (back in the logicworks then platinum
days), but now it's owned by CA.. It's still ok, but if you actually
have to talk to the vendor (to get license keys straightened out, etc)
you will be sorry. Don't know that I've ever encountered a more inept
customer service organization.

Haven't used oracle designer in years, I thought it was horrid then,
don't know if it's any better today.

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Philip Sherman - 10 Feb 2005 02:00 GMT

Find out if the company obtained IBM's "Redevelopment Assistant"
software for Y2K conversion. This tool was designed to figure out how
all of the pieces/parts if a system work together. Unfortunately, it
doesn't do anything with E-R type documentation and will require setting
up an OS/2 UDB PC to run the product.

Phil Sherman

> Just recently I got hired by a large company to evaluate and document a
> large banking system written in COBOL and stored on the mainframes with
[quoted text clipped - 13 lines]
>
> Krystian

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