Reverse Engineering from a Live Database

PowerDesigner can reverse engineer a PDM from a live database connection. You must specify a data source and connection information. You can select to use administrator permissions in order to be able to select the system tables that are reserved to a database administrator.

1. To reverse engineer from a live database connection into an existing PDM, select Database > Update Model from Database.

   or

   To reverse engineer from a live database connection and create a new PDM, select File > Reverse Engineer > Database to open the New Physical Data Model dialog. Specify a model name, choose a DBMS from the list, and then click OK.

2. In the Database Reverse Engineering Options dialog, select Using a data source:
   
   
   

   Note: A data source might be predefined, or you can enter the name of an existing data source. In both cases, if you need to specify additional connection parameters, a database connection dialog box opens when you click OK. Enter the necessary parameters and click Connect to open the Database Reverse Engineering dialog.
3. Select your data source. You can either accept the selected data source (if one is present) or click the Connect to a Data Source tool to select or define one. For detailed information about working with data sources, see Core Features Guide > Modeling with PowerDesigner > Getting Started with PowerDesigner > Connecting to a Database.
4. [optional] To reverse engineer tables reserved to the database administrator, select Reverse using administrator's permissions.
5. [optional] Click the Options tab to specify any reverse engineering options (see Reverse Engineering Options Tab).
   Note: References and primary keys are not rebuilt by default. To enable rebuilding, select the appropriate options on the Options tab.
6. [optional] Click the Target Models tab to specify any external shortcuts (see Reverse Engineering Target Models Tab).
7. Click OK to open the Database Reverse Engineering dialog, which allows you to specify the objects to reverse engineer (see Database Reverse Engineering Selection Window). Only tables and triggers are selected by default.
   
   
   
8. Click OK to begin reverse engineering.
   If you are reverse engineering to an existing PDM, then the Merge Models dialog box opens to allow you to control the merging of the new objects into your PDM (see Core Features Guide > Modeling with PowerDesigner > Comparing and Merging Models). When the process is complete, a confirmation message is given in the Output window.