Data Modeling: Logical Database Design

This guidebook, and its companion volume which follows, provide a solid basis from which one can successfully implement relational database, multidimensional data warehouse and business intelligence (BI) technologies. The principal objective of this initial course volume is to convey a practical and common sense guide to the theory and concepts of data modeling. Using these sophisticated techniques one can create an elegant logical design of a database. Within this course we discuss not only the premier modeling theories from the best industry experts but also present the practical and real-world experience of the past 20-years of Sideris data design practitioners.

The methodologies discussed are applicable to any relational database environment, including IBM DB2, the Oracle database, Microsoft SQL Server, the open-source MySQL and PostgreSQL databases as well as other RDBMS platforms. They are also applicable to other database technologies, such as object databases and legacy IMS and IDMS databases. Finally, while we use the free Oracle SQL Developer Data Modeler product as a demonstration modeling tool, one can complete the exercises of this course and apply the techniques learned using any other popular data model diagramming tool, such as IBM InfoSphere Data Architect, CA ErWin Data Modeler, Embarcadero ER/Studio and others.

A summary of the objectives of this textbook are: DATA MODELING THEORY & CONCEPTS; BUILDING AN INITIAL DATA MODEL; DRAWING A MODEL USING SOFTWARE ENGINEERING TOOLS; INCREASING THE ACCURACY OF THE MODEL; FINDING & FIXING ATTRIBUTE MISTAKES; SEMANTIC & OBJECT ORIENTED MODELING OF ENTITIES & RELATIONSHIPS; SEMANTIC & OBJECT ORIENTED MODELING OF DOMAINS & TYPES; TIME-DEPENDENCY & STATE-DEPENDENCY; CLASSIC STRUCTURES & PATTERNS; LOGICAL / PHYSICAL MODEL TRANSFORMATION; RDBMS IMPLEMENTATION OF THE PHYSICAL MODEL