MySQL Workbench Offers New Visual Database Tools

By: Mary Couchman
Staff Writer
Published: Apr 17, 2008

MySQL Workbench has been announced by Sun Microsystems which features a new visual database design tool that integrates data modeling.

Sun Microsystems, Inc. on Thursday announced the availability of MySQL Workbench, a new visual database design tool that integrates data modeling, physical database design, database creation, change management and documentation capabilities into a single, seamless environment for MySQL developers and DBAs.

MySQL Workbench is a free available download as the open source Community Edition. A $99 commercial Standard Edition is also available. Both editions are available now for Microsoft Windows, with future cross-platform support for Linux and Macintosh OS X under development.

"We are very happy to deliver a powerful open source database design tool for the MySQL ecosystem," said Michael G. Zinner, Sun's team lead for database developer tools. "The two editions are designed to meet the needs of the do-it-yourself community developer, while providing a very affordable and compelling commercial product for the corporate database professional."

The MySQL Workbench Community Edition is a full-featured tool that provides a base framework for data modeling and physical database design. The commercial version, MySQL Workbench Standard Edition, is an extension that offers new features such as reverse and forward-engineering capabilities, synchronization to and from live databases, HTML and text-based documentation, built-in validation of models and security management for modeled objects.

Meanwhile, Sun Microsystems also announced that it will be releasing version 5.1 of MySQL in this quarter. A release candidate is already available for downloading.