Database Systems:

Design, Implementation, and

Management
Ninth Edition

Chapter 2
Data Models

Database Systems, 9th Edition 1

 Objectives

In this chapter, you will learn:

• About data modeling and why data models are
important
• About the basic data-modeling building blocks
• What business rules are and how they influence
database design
• How the major data models evolved
• How data models can be classified by level of
abstraction

Database Systems, 9th Edition 2

 Introduction

• Designers, programmers, and end users see

data in different ways
• Different views of same data lead to designs
that do not reflect organization’s operation
• Data modeling reduces complexities of
database design

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 Data Modeling and Data Models
• Database design: focuses on how the database structure
will be used to store and manage end-user data
• Data modeling: the first step in designing a
database ,refers to the process of creating a specific data
model for a determined problem domain
• Data models
– Relatively simple graphical representations of complex
real-world data structures.
– Model: an abstraction of a real-world object or event
– Useful in understanding complexities of the real-world
environment

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 Data Modeling and Data Models

• Data modeling is iterative and progressive

• Final data model is a “Blue Print” narrative
& graphical .
• Database designers relies on good judgment
to develop a good data model.

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 The Importance of Data Models
• Facilitate interaction among the designer, the
applications programmer, and the end user
• End users have different views and needs for data
( managers , employees, application programmers)
• When a good blueprint is available, it doesn’t
matter that every user has different view from the
others
• Data model is an abstraction
– Unlikely to create a good database without first
creating an appropriate data model

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 Data Model Basic Building Blocks
• Entity: anything about which data are to be collected and
stored
• Attribute: a characteristic of an entity
• Relationship: describes an association among entities
– One-to-many (1:M or 1..*) relationship
– Many-to-many (M:N or M:M or *..*) relationship
– One-to-one (1:1 or 1..1) relationship
• Constraint: a restriction placed on the data.
 Constraints are normally expressed in form of rules
 Constraints are important because they help to ensure data
integrity

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 Business Rules
• Descriptions of policies, procedures, or principles within a
specific organization
– Apply to any organization that stores and uses data to
generate information
• Business rules derived from a description of operations help to
create/enforce actions within an organization’s environment
– Must be written and updated
– Used to define entities ,relationships, and constraints
– Must be easy to understand and widely disseminated
• Describe characteristics of data as viewed by the company
• Examples of business rules.

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 Discovering Business Rules
• Sources of business rules:
– Company managers
– Policy makers
– Department managers
– Written documentation
• Procedures
• Standards
• Operations manuals
– Direct interviews with end users
 different perception.

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 Discovering Business Rules (cont’d.)
The process of identifying and documenting business rules
is essential to database designer for several reasons:
• Standardize company’s view of data
• Communications tool between users and designers
• Allow designer to understand the nature, role, and scope of
data
• Allow designer to understand business processes
• Allow designer to develop appropriate relationship
participation rules and constraints
“ NOT ALL business rules can be modeled “

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 Translating Business Rules into
Data Model Components
• Generally, nouns translate into entities
• Verbs translate into relationships among entities
• Relationships are bidirectional
• Two questions to identify the relationship type:
– How many instances of B are related to one
instance of A?
– How many instances of A are related to one
instance of B?

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 Naming Conventions

• Naming occurs during translation of business

rules to data model components
• Names should make the object unique and
distinguishable from other objects
• Names should also be descriptive of objects in
the environment and be familiar to users
• Proper naming:
– Facilitates communication between parties
– Promotes model self-documentation

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 The Evolution of Data Models

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 The Hierarchical Model

• The hierarchical model was developed in the

1960s to manage large amounts of data for
manufacturing projects
• Basic logical structure is represented by an
upside-down “tree”
• Hierarchical structure contains levels or
segments
– Set of one-to-many relationships between
segments

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 CEO

Marketing Finance Operation

manager Manager Manager

Employee Employee 2 Employee 3 Employee 4 Employee 5 Employee 6

1

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 The Network Model

• The network model was created to represent

complex data relationships more effectively
than the hierarchical model
• Resembles hierarchical model
– However, record may have more than one
parent

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 Ms. Ghada Ms. Anwar Ms. Mashael

Principles of Accounting Legal

Microeconomics
MIS Environment

Student 1 Student 2 Student 3 Student 4 Student 5 Student 6

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 The Network Model (cont’d.)

• Disadvantages of the network model:

– Cumbersome
– Lack of ad hoc query capability placed burden
on programmers to generate code for reports
– Structural change in the database could
produce havoc in all application programs
(structural dependence)

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 The Relational Model
• Developed by E.F. Codd (IBM) in 1970
• Represented a major breakthrough for both users
and designers
• Table (relations)
– Matrix consisting of row/column intersections
– Each row in a relation is called a tuple
– Each column represents an attribute
• Relational models were considered impractical in
1970. (computers at that time lacked the power to
implement them)

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 The Relational Model (cont’d.)
• Relational data management system (RDBMS)
– Performs same functions provided by hierarchical
and network DBMS
– Additional functions that make the relational data
model easier to understand and implement
– Hides complexity from the user

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 Tables are related to each other through the sharing of a
common attribute

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 Relational diagram is a
Representation of entities, attributes, and
relationships

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 The Relational Model (cont’d.)
• SQL-based relational database application
involves three parts:
– User interface
• Allows end user to interact with the data
– Set of tables stored in the database
• Each table is independent from another
• Rows in different tables are related based on
common values in common attributes
– SQL “engine”
• Executes all queries

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 The Entity Relationship Model

• Widely accepted standard for data modeling

• Introduced by Chen in 1976 and quickly
became popular
• ER data model: Graphical representation of
entities and their relationships in a database
structure that uses Entity Relationship
Diagram (ERD).

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 The Object-Oriented (OO) Model
• Data and relationships are contained in a single structure
known as an object
• OODM (object-oriented data model) is the basis for
OODBMS
– Semantic data model
• An object:
– Contains all operations that can be performed on it
– Are self-contained: a basic building-block for
autonomous structures
– Object Is an abstraction of a real-world entity that
represents only one occurrence of an entity

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 The Object-Oriented (OO) Model
(cont’d.)
• Attributes describe the properties of an object
• Objects that share similar characteristics are grouped in
classes
• Classes are organized in a class hierarchy
• Inheritance: object inherits methods and attributes of
parent class
• UML is a language based on OO concepts that describe
diagrams and symbols used to graphically model a system.
• UML class diagram: is used to represent data and their
relationships within UML object-oriented system’s modeling
language

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 Newer Data Models:
Object/Relational and XML
• Extended relational data model (ERDM)
– The ERDM gave birth to a new generation of
relational databases that support OO features.

– Often described as an object/relational

database management system (O/RDBMS)

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 Newer Data Models:
Object/Relational and XML (cont’d.)
• The Internet revolution created the potential
to exchange critical business information
• In this environment, Extensible Markup
Language (XML) emerged as the de facto
standard
• Current databases support XML
– XML: the standard protocol for data exchange
among systems and Internet services

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 The Future of Data Models
• Today O/R DBMS is the dominant database for
business applications
• OO DBMS is popular in niche markets such as
computer –aided drawing/computer aided
manufacturing, GIS, telecommunication, and
multimedia , which require support for complex
objects
• O/R databases have proven to efficiently support
structured and unstructured data management

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 Degrees of Data Abstraction

• Database designer starts with abstracted

view, then adds details
• ANSI Standards Planning and Requirements
Committee (SPARC)
– Defined a framework for data modeling based
on degrees of data abstraction (1970s):
• External
• Conceptual
• Internal

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 The External Model

• End users’ view of the data environment

• ER diagrams represent external views
• External schema: specific representation of
an external view
– Entities
– Relationships
– Processes
– Constraints

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 The External Model (cont’d.)

The use of external views representation subsets of

the database has some important advantages:
• Easy to identify specific data required to support
each business unit’s operations
• Facilitates designer’s job by providing feedback
about the model’s adequacy
• Ensures security constraints in database design
• Simplifies application program development

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 The Conceptual Model

• Represents global view of the entire database

• All external views integrated into single global
view: conceptual schema
• ER model is the most widely used conceptual
model.
• ERD graphically represents the conceptual
schema

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 The Conceptual Model (cont’d.)
Advantages :
•Provides a relatively easily understood macro level
view of data environment
•Independent of both software and hardware
– Does not depend on the DBMS software used to
implement the model
– Does not depend on the hardware used in the
implementation of the model
– Changes in hardware or software do not affect
database design at the conceptual level

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 The Internal Model
• Representation of the database as “seen” by the DBMS
• Once a DBMS selected the internal model maps the
conceptual model to the DBMS
• Internal schema depicts a specific representation of an
internal model, using the database constructs supported by
the chosen database
• Depends on specific database software
(software-depndent)
– Change in DBMS software requires internal model be
changed
• Hardware-independent

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 The Physical Model

• Operates at lowest level of abstraction

– Describes the way data are saved on storage
media such as disks or tapes
• Requires the definition of physical storage
and data access methods
• Both software and hardware dependent
• Relational model aimed at logical level
– Does not require physical-level details

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 Summary

• A data model is an abstraction of a complex

real-world data environment
• Basic data modeling components:
– Entities
– Attributes
– Relationships
– Constraints
• Business rules identify and define basic
modeling components

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 Summary (cont’d.)
• Hierarchical model
– Set of one-to-many (1:M) relationships between a
parent and its children segments
• Network data model
– Uses sets to represent 1:M relationships between
record types
• Relational model
– Current database implementation standard
– ER model is a tool for data modeling
• Complements relational model

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 Summary (cont’d.)
• Object-oriented data model: object is basic
modeling structure
• Relational model adopted object-oriented
extensions: extended relational data model
(ERDM)
• OO data models depicted using UML
• Data-modeling requirements are a function of
different data views and abstraction levels
– Three abstraction levels: external, conceptual,
internal

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