Reverse Engineer a Model

You can reverse engineer an existing database to create a logical or physical data model. This helps you understand the database structure, validate designs, or analyze a specific application area without modeling the entire database.

You can reverse engineer a model in one of two ways:

Scenario: Reverse Engineer a Specific Business Domain

Imagine you are part of a cloud migration team moving sales data from a large enterprise database to a cloud data warehouse. Because the source system supports multiple business domains, migrating the entire database would add unnecessary complexity.

To streamline the migration, your team wants to focus only on the sales domain to extract a targeted subset of the database that includes only sales-related data structures and excludes unrelated areas such as HR and Procurement.

This approach helps your team:

  • Reduce migration scope

  • Avoid dependencies on unrelated domains

  • Improve performance during reverse engineering and migration

  • Support a faster and more controlled cloud adoption

With targeted reverse engineering, your team selectively identifies and imports only the database objects required for sales operations. Then, start by analyzing the source database and identifying relevant schemas and tables.

Reverse engineer a model using REDB

Step 1: Select the reverse engineering source

Select the source that you want to reverse engineer.

  1. Select Reverse Engineer.

    Reverse Engineer Overview page in Quest Data Modeler

    The Overview page opens.

  2. On the Overview page:
    1. Under Reverse engineer source, select Database.
    2. Under Type, select the model type. For example, Logical/Physical.
  3. From the Database and Version lists, select the database and its version to reverse engineer. For example, select Microsoft Fabric for Database and Data Warehouse for Version.
  4. Select Next.

Step 2: Connect to the database

Establish a secure connection to the database server.

  1. On the Connection page, enter the following connection parameters:

    Parameters

    Description

    Connection Type

    Specifies the type of connection required to connect to the database.

    Select the type of connection as JDBC to connect to database.

    Currently, only JDBC is supported.

    Client ID

    Unique identifier of the OAuth application used to connect to the cloud database required for databases that use OAuth authentication.

    Client Secret

    Confidential key associated with the Client ID used to securely obtain an access token from the OAuth provider during database connection.

    Warehouse Name

    Identifies the virtual compute warehouse that the database uses to execute queries.

    Server Name

    Host name or endpoint of the database server for reverse engineering.

    Port

    Network port used by the database server to accept incoming connections.

    This table lists the parameters specific to the Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse database. For more information on other supported databases, see Database Support.

  2. Select Connect to establish the connection.

    Reverse Engineer Connection page in Quest Data Modeler app

  3. Select Next

Step 3: Choose objects to include in your model

Narrow down to the schemas and tables relevant to your domain.

  1. On the Schemas tab, under Available Schemas, select the required schemas. For example, Sales_Schema.

    Available Schema list in Quest Data Modeler Reverse Engineer Wizard

  2. Select Icon for moving the selected objects to the selected objects pane to move the selected schema to theSelected Schemas pane. Then, select Next.
  3. On the Tables tab, under Available Tables, choose the required tables. For example, Orders, OrderItems, Products, Customers, and Categories.

    Available tables list in Quest Data Modeler Reverse Engineer Wizard

  4. Select Icon for moving the selected objects from Available tables to selected tables pane to move them to Selected Tables pane. Then, select Next
  5. On the Views tab, under Available Views, choose views to move to the Selected Views pane.
  6. Select Icon for moving the selected objects from Available tables to selected tables pane to move them to Selected Views pane. Then, select Next.
  7. On the Options tab, modify the selections to align with your requirements, and then select OK.

    Advanced options in Quest Data Modeler Reverse Engineer Wizard

Once the process is complete, a schema is generated and a model is created based on your selections.

Model generated after performing Reverse Engineering

Step 4: Configure additional options

Fine-tune the generated model.

Configure additional options such as naming and relationships, based on your modeling requirements. For example, add relationships between the tables as shown in the following image.

Modified Model after Reverse Engineering

Step 5: Review and save the generated model

After reverse engineering completes:

  • You have a new model that includes only the schemas and tables you selected.
  • This model excludes unrelated application areas, which reduces complexity and allows you to analyze a focused model.

Download the model in JSON, SVG, PDF, RDF/TTL Ontology, and RDF/TTF Constraint formats by selecting Download from the upper-right corner of the workspace or save the model by selecting Mart option on the Quest Data Modeler Diagram View toolbar > Save from the toolbar when you are satisfied with it.

Reverse engineer a model using RES

Step 1: Select the reverse engineering source

Select the source you want to reverse engineer.

  1. Select Reverse Engineer.

    Reverse engineering overview page

    The Overview page opens.

  2. On the Overview page:
    1. Under Reverse engineer source, select Script file.
    2. Under Type, select the model type. For example, Logical/Physical.
  3. From the Database and Version lists, select the database and its version to reverse engineer. For example, select Microsoft Fabric for Database and Data Warehouse for Version.
  4. Select Change to browse for the script file on your system.

    Note: Only SQL files are supported for RES, so you must select an SQL file.

  5. Select Next. The app analyzes your DDL script before it creates the model.

    Script analysis done in RES before the model creation

Step 2: Review parsing results

Analyze the results and generate the model.

  1. Review Parse Results to confirm that the script is processed successfully.

    RES Script Parsing Result

  2. Select OK. The model creation process starts.

    Model creation process in reverse engineering using script wizard

    Once the process completes, your model is created.

    Model created on performing RES

Step 3: Validate and refine the generated model

After model generation, verify it's accuracy and make any necessary adjustments.

  1. Review the schemas and tables.
  2. Modify the model as needed. For example, keep the Products, Categories, OrderItems, and Orders tables, and remove other tables and add relationships between them as shown in the following image.

    Modified Model after Reverse Engineering

  3. Download the model in JSON, SVG, or PDF formats by selecting Download from the top right corner of the workspace or save the model by selecting Mart option on the Quest Data Modeler Diagram View toolbar> Save from the toolbar when you are satisfied with it.

Step 4: Review the model

After reverse engineering completes:

  • You have a new model that includes only the schemas and tables you selected.
  • The model excludes unrelated application areas, which reduces complexity and allows you to analyze a focused model.