FAQ
Why SchemaBank?
1. What is SchemaBank exactly?
2. I have been doing database modeling using software on Windows/Linux/Unix/Mac. Why would I want to do it over the web?
3. Why would I pay you every now and then for a subscription? I could also choose to buy a software license and own it perpetually.
Important SB Concepts
1. What is a project?
2. What is an ERD pane?
3. What are text objects?
4. What is a working copy?
5. What is a version?
6. What is a branch?
7. What is forward engineering?
8. What is reverse engineering?
9. What is refactoring?
Miscellaneous
1. What is the company behind SchemaBank?
2. I am writing a review for your product. Where can I get some screen capture of SB?
Why SchemaBank?
1. What is SchemaBank exactly?
SB is about visual data modeling, database schema design, and translation of designs and models into data description language (e.g. SQL statements).
This happens in a collaborative environment, bundled with project sharing, multi-branch versioning and change management facilities.
Most importantly, with the web metaphor built into SB, your team can be as dispersed geographically as you want.
2. I have been doing database modeling using software on Windows/Linux/Unix/Mac. Why would I want to do it over the web?
With SB, you can save time because:
- you don't need to install/ configure/ update/ upgrade any such software
- you don't need to persuade and convince your partners / customers to do that either
- you don't need to configure any networking devices to allow remote access of your database models
- you and your partners / customers can collaborate easily yet securely on database modeling using any modern web browsers
With SB, you can save money because:
- the time saved means money saved : ). Plus,
- we offer free plan for people with low demand and usage pattern, in addition to paid subscription
- you can terminate an SB subscription anytime you want while keeping your schema in our system
- our pricing for paid subscription is very affordable and competitive to OS-tied client-based alternatives
With SB, you can work anywhere: at home, at workplace, at partner's site, in the lab, in the dorm, or anywhere with WiFi or 3G.
Your team too.
3. Why would I pay you every now and then for a subscription? I could choose to buy a software license and own it perpetually.
On buying software license: a commercial-grade database modeler matching our feature list is very expensive and one supporting collaboration out of the box bears a scary price tag.
On perpetual licensing: very often, you still need to pay for on-going support every year and major-version upgrade every now and then.
Important SB Concepts
A project in SB stores schema of a single database, including the graphical entity-relationship diagrams and other objects like views, stored procedures, trigger functions, etc. Each project also has its own multi-branch version repository in where you can store different versions of your schema.
An ERD pane, being a part of a project, is where you would draw your ER (entity-relationship) diagram comprising of entities, identifying and non-identify relationships.
Text objects are those database objects (e.g. stored procedures) not yet represented diagrammatically under SB. You would put down their definitions in text under the Text Objects tab in the project environment.
A working copy is the current working environment that you make changes to your project. At any time, you can commit your working copy as a version.
A version is a read-only snapshot of your database model, which is stored for future retrieval. Once you commit the working copy as a version, you cannot modify that version. Generating SQL statements is always based on a version, so that you will always be able to retrieve the source schema of the SQL statements.
A branch is a tool for structuring your version repository.
Similar to traditional software versioning system, you can fork your schema into different branches such that it follows the structure of your software code repository.
Another useful way of branching in SB is to provide versioning for developer sandboxing. You can create a branch for each of your developer so that they can save different versions of their work-in-progress schema in their sandboxes. They would then be able to refactor their own sandbox database to reflect the changes, without messing up other developers' sandbox databases.
You can also create a branch for your staging database server and another one for the production server.
All version management features (e.g. diff report, ALTER scripts for refactoring) can be applied across branches.
7. What is forward engineering?
Forward engineering refers to the features in SB that helps transform your ERD, text objects and their changes to proper data definition language (e.g. SQL statements).
8. What is reverse engineering?
Reverse engineering refers to the features in SB that helps extract all schema information from a target DBMS system, so that the information can be represented in SB appropriately.
The first two paragraphs in Wikipedia gives good explanation. SB generates the proper scripts to refactor your database from one schema version to another.
Miscellaneous
1. What is the company behind SchemaBank?
Please refer to the 'Who Are We' page.
2. I am writing a review for your product. Where can I get some screen capture of SB?
Please refer to the Media Kit page.
