Is this a good idea for a non-profit organization?

How can I get a good idea of how over 100 database tables in my organization's production database relate?

• Using ms sql server 2008 reporting. Maybe visually? Or in the form of typed documentation? What is a good way to begin documentation myself that would be useful in the future for a systems manager?

• Answer:

  You should mention what database system you are working with.  This will help you get really specific answers. Most RDMS systems generate ERDs. Google your particular database system and 'ERD' and you'll find out how. This is the most important thing: Create a backup of your production database and restore it on another server.  Then you can generate the ERD diagram against the backup database.  Do not ever mess with a production system, especially with these tools.  The resulting diagram is most likely going to be a huge mess.  At first, don't think about the tables and just organize the diagram.  Find the one-to-one and one-many relationships and lay them out (as much as possible) so the relationship lines don't overlap.  Then you'll see the star patterns and begin to understand the areas of responsibility each group of tables covers. Print this diagram, tape or paste the pages together and hang it on your cubicle wall or someplace near your comp so you can just stare at it, because you will be looking at it a lot.  But that's not the end of it.  You may now understand the relationships between the tables' primary keys and foreign keys, but you need to look for indexes, triggers, stored procedures and queries in your applications.  Viewing the create statements for the tables will help you find the indexes and possibly the triggers.  Covering the stored procedures may be trickier, you may want to think about creating another diagram or excel file that lists each SP and the database entities involved. This is just my 2¢.  It's been a few years since I've even worked with databases but I did use to do some DBA work.  I am certain though that you're going to get a lot of really good answers on this.