Using CASE Tools for Database Design

A CASE (computer-aided software engineering) tool is a software package that provides support for the design and implementation of information systems. By integrating many of the techniques used to document a system design—including the data dictionary, data flows, and entity relationships—CASE software can increase the consistency and accuracy of a database design. It can document a database design and can provide invaluable help in maintaining the consistency of a design. Although some current CASE tools can verify the integrity of a data model, they cannot design the database. There is no software in the world that can examine a database environment and identify the entities, attributes, and relationships that should be represented in a database. The model created with CASE software is therefore only as good as the analysis of the database environment performed by the people using the tool. Many of the diagrams and reports that a CASE tool can provide are designed to follow a single theoretical model. In addition to providing tools for simplifying the creation of ER diagrams, many CASE tools can generate reports that document the contents of an ERD. This chapter discusses the issues related to CASE and their impact on relational models.