Leading personal computer database modelling company Logic Works Inc, Princeton, New Jersey, and Santa Clara, California-based object-oriented software engineering specialist Rational Software Corp have jointly developed an integration link that enables their respective design tools to exchange metadata. The two claim that until now there has been no easy way to move between object and data models; until now systems had to be hand-coded. Their idea is that relational database elements created using Logic Works’s ERwin tools can be translated into object models that can be implemented in Rational Rose and vice versa. Specifically the link converts ERwin’s ERX file format into Rational Rose PTF format which represents the model of a business process. The companies say developers will be able to use ERwin to reverse-engineer existing relational databases for migration to Rational Rose object models for developing partitioned applications. Meantime Rational Rose can generate data definition language files that can be captured by ERwin for object-relational database design for Microsoft Corp SQL Server, Oracle and Informix. A first generation integration link is being given away from both companies’ Web sites. It enables Rose classes to be created from ERwin entities and classes and vice versa, but doesn’t guarantee that information will not be lost on the round trip. A second generation link which will provide more seamless and robust migration will follow, although there is no time-scale. Rational said it and Logic Works agreed to work together because they share a large number of customers. Logic Works had originally planned to create its own object model. Rational is to resell Logic Works tools in the US and Canada.
