The benefits of moving to a central repository

It is important to understand the difference between a drawing tool and a visual relational database such as ProVision®. The outputs can look identical. Because drawing tools are so much cheaper, why would you invest in ProVision®?

There are a number of drawing packages available, Microsoft Visio is the key player in this market. It is a drawing package that is optimized for business diagrams. Modelers can select pre-built stencils to create models rapidly. As Visio is often installed already, it is the tool of choice of many business analysts.

Designed to scale

If all you need to do is visually represent an aspect of a business, then there is nothing wrong with Visio. However, its limitations soon become apparent. To understand the key differences, I need to explain some basic concepts about ProVision® as you will see them mentioned throughout this book. I mentioned them in the first chapter of the book and will now examine them in more detail...