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How to Find Out the Version of MySQL I am Using

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Visual Paradigm supports data modeling with ERD and a set of engineering features like the reverse engineering and generation of database. The features are related with each other. For example, you may generate a database from physical ERD. In order to construct a data model that helps you build a database properly, you need to name the entities and their columns properly. Besides, data types of columns should be well-considered. Just to take the type ‘char’ example, there are quite a number of similar types like varchar, varchar2, nvarchar, etc. If a wrong type is chosen for any column, you may get data corruption or result in data lost.

Visual Paradigm supports all the data types you can find in any supported database management system (DBMS). You can select any data type you want for columns when drawing ERD. As the supported data types vary depending on the target version of DBMS, you need to set in the database configuration page the version of DBMS you use. With this, Visual Paradigm can list out those supported types, preventing you from selecting a non-supported type, which result in producing an inaccurate data model.

In this article, you will learn how to find out the version of your MySQL installation. Try to follow the steps get the information needed, and select the proper version range in the database configuration window of VP-UML. Read more

How to Find Out What Version of SQL Server You Are Using

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Visual Paradigm supports data modeling with ERD and a set of engineering features like the reverse engineering and generation of database. The features are related with each other. For example, you may generate a database from physical ERD. In order to construct a data model that helps you build a database properly, you need to name the entities and their columns properly. Besides, data types of columns should be well-considered. Just to take the type ‘char’ example, there are quite a number of similar types like varchar, varchar2, nvarchar, etc. If a wrong type is chosen for any column, you may get data corruption or result in data lost.

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Personalize Database Connection Settings to Aid in Team Development

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When a development team is developing a system that requires accessing a database, it is a common practice to setup local databases on each of the development environment and populate them with all the required schema of the system so that developers can develop and test the function they implement with test data in their own database, rather than working with actual data with production database.

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How to turn off the column datatype in ERD?

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In an ERD, when you represent the columns that exist in entities, you might only want to show their names but not any other property like their types since datatype is usually not required in early communication of data structure but is only required when implementing a database. In order to simplify an ERD and to avoid giving wrong information, you can hide the datatype, so that only the column names are left. For your convenience, Visual Paradigm supports hiding the datatype of columns, please follow the simple steps below. Read more

How to Group Entities in ERD Database Designer?

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deletet-keyLast week, we showed you how to assign entities in an ERD to a schema. One of our users ask if there is any way to group entities in a logical manner, rather than setting the schema property reserved for physical database.

The answer is yes. You can make use of model or UML package to store and categories the entities in logical groups. The grouping can be seen in both the Model Structure and diagram. In this article, we will show you how to group entities in ERD database designer. In order to perform the steps described in this article, make sure you have Visual Paradigm installed.

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Progressively Develop Conceptual, Logical and Physical ERDs

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tomcat-thumbEntity-Relationship Diagrams (ERDs) come in 3 types in general. They describe data models on 3 levels of abstraction – conceptual, logical and physical, ranging from high-level ideas to details required for implementation. With Visual Paradigm, you can systematically and easily progress through these stages of development in data modeling.

Far from a copy & paste function only, you can actually develop a logical or physical design from a conceptual diagram, with the design tracing ability.

For example, if a new staff comes on board to work on a project’s physical design ERD, he/she can click on a database table to trace where this idea originally comes from in the conceptual diagram (to which it is inherently linked by Visual Paradigm). This function will not only bring relief to the staff but also help safeguard the project’s quality along the way.

In this article, we will show you an example on how to create a conceptual ERD and transit it to a physical ERD, from which you can generate a DLL file for database implementation. Read more

Using GUID Column in ERD

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GUID (Global Unique Identifier) is a special type of identifier in Microsoft SQL Server, which commonly use for generate unique value for key columns. You can specify column as GUID through the Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD). The steps for specify GUID column is quite simple:

  1. Specify MS SQL Server as default database server of the project
  2. Specify the datatype of primary key column as uniqueidentifier
  3. Change the ID Generator of the primary key column as GUID

The following flash movie demonstrate how to specify the primary key column as GUID.

Copy Models across Projects

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Users can copy and paste models not only between diagrams, but also across projects in VP-UML. This article is going to show you how to copy and paste model across projects within the same application.

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Database Design with Schema

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Since VP-UML supports schema, users can make use of model to manage database. Users can develop ERDs under models, thereby, entities in different models can share the same name, but different schema. This page will demonstrate how to create model, how to create ERD under model and then how to apply schema.

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Pin Specification Window in ERD

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By pinning, users can read those specification window of various model elements consecutively, no longer have to close the previous specification window and open new specification dialog box repeatedly. Reading the specification window of different entities in ERD now becomes an easy task.

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