When I was a DBA, there were only a handful of must-have tools that I constantly used.  One was a good performance monitor.  Two was a cross-platform admin tool (since I worked with Oracle, SQL Server, Sybase, MySQL, etc.) And three was my data modeling/design tool.  There was absolutely no way I could have done my job in the manner I needed to without those three tools.

Of those three, there were times when I basically lived inside my modeling tool.  Why?  Because:

• Metadata management – I had to ensure data consistency and enforce standards of data elements used throughout my shop; the modeling tool was the best way to do this. 
• DB design – simply put, there was no way to more quickly put out a new DB design and forward engineer it into a new physical DB without my modeling tool
• Change management – when I made changes to the DB, I always wanted to keep a copy of how the DB looked before for change management reasons (in case I needed to put things back).  Using the modeling tool was the best way to do this.
• Packaged application management – I hated the black-box feel of packaged apps, but the modeling tool allowed me to reverse engineer and see inside the DB, which was a huge help.
• Reporting and communication – developers and business analysts always wanted layouts of the database they were using.  A couple of clicks in the modeling tool gave them what they wanted.
• Performance tuning – looking at bad datatypes, bad relations, denormalizing designs, etc., are all more easily handled in a modeling tool.

This is why I’m hyped over us releasing the beta of MySQL Workbench.  Now you and I have a nice tool to tackle the stuff above for MySQL DB’s.  Once you use it for a project or two, you’ll see what I mean about how much help a modeling tool can be.

Make sure you download the free version and let us know what you think.  You can also try out the commerical version, which has a few more time-saving things in it. Whichever edition you end up using, I think you’ll get hooked on modeling tools like I did a long time ago. 

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