2

Chapter 2

Data Models

Database Systems:
Design, Implementation, and Management,
Seventh Edition, Rob and Coronel
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In this chapter, you will learn:

• 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

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The Importance of Data Models

• Data models
– Relatively simple representations, usually
graphical, of complex real-world data
structures
– Facilitate interaction among the designer, the
applications programmer, and the end user

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The Importance of Data Models
(continued)
• End-users have different views and needs for
data
• Data model organizes data for various users

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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) relationship
– Many-to-many (M:N or M:M) relationship
– One-to-one (1:1) relationship
• Constraint - a restriction placed on the data

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Business Rules

• Brief, precise, and unambiguous descriptions

of a policies, procedures, or principles within
a specific organization
• Apply to any organization that stores and
uses data to generate information
• Description of operations that help to create
and enforce actions within that organization’s
environment

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Business Rules (continued)

• Must be rendered in writing

• Must be kept up to date
• Sometimes are external to the organization
• Must be easy to understand and widely
disseminated
• Describe characteristics of the data as viewed
by the company
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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

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Translating Business Rules into Data
Model Components
• Standardize company’s view of data
• Constitute a 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
• Promote creation of an accurate data model

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Discovering Business Rules (continued)

• Generally, nouns translate into entities

• Verbs translate into relationships among
entities
• Relationships are bi-directional

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The Evolution of Data Models

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The Evolution of Data Models (continued)

• Hierarchical
• Network
• Relational
• Entity relationship
• Object oriented (OO)

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The Hierarchical Model

• Developed in the 1960s to manage large

amounts of data for complex manufacturing
projects
• Basic logical structure is represented by an
upside-down “tree”

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The Hierarchical Model (continued)

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The Hierarchical Model (continued)

• The hierarchical structure contains levels, or

segments
• Depicts a set of one-to-many (1:M)
relationships between a parent and its
children segments
– Each parent can have many children
– each child has only one parent

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The Hierarchical Model (continued)

• Advantages
– Many of the hierarchical data model’s features
formed the foundation for current data models
– Its database application advantages are
replicated, albeit in a different form, in current
database environments
– Generated a large installed (mainframe) base,
created a pool of programmers who developed
numerous tried-and-true business applications

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The Hierarchical Model (continued)

• Disadvantages
– Complex to implement
– Difficult to manage
– Lacks structural independence
– Implementation limitations
– Lack of standards

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The Network Model

• Created to
– Represent complex data relationships more
effectively
– Improve database performance
– Impose a database standard
• Conference on Data Systems Languages
(CODASYL)
• Database Task Group (DBTG)

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The Network Model (continued)

• Schema
– Conceptual organization of entire database as viewed
by the database administrator
• Subschema
– Defines database portion “seen” by the application
programs that actually produce the desired information
from data contained within the database
• Data Management Language (DML)
– Defines the environment in which data can be
managed

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The Network Model (continued)

• Schema Data Definition Language (DDL)

– Enables database administrator to define
schema components
• Subschema DDL
– Allows application programs to define
database components that will be used
• DML
– Works with the data in the database

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The Network Model (continued)

• Resembles hierarchical model

• Collection of records in 1:M relationships
• Set
– Relationship
– Composed of at least two record types
• Owner
– Equivalent to the hierarchical model’s parent
• Member
– Equivalent to the hierarchical model’s child

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The Network Model (continued)

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The Network Model (continued)

• Disadvantages
– Too cumbersome
– The lack of ad hoc query capability put heavy
pressure on programmers
– Any structural change in the database could
produce havoc in all application programs that
drew data from the database
– Many database old-timers can recall the
interminable information delays

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The Relational Model

• Developed by Codd (IBM) in 1970

• Considered ingenious but impractical in 1970
• Conceptually simple
• Computers lacked power to implement the
relational model
• Today, microcomputers can run sophisticated
relational database software
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The Relational Model (continued)

• Relational Database Management System

(RDBMS)
• Performs same basic functions provided by
hierarchical and network DBMS systems, in
addition to a host of other functions
• Most important advantage of the RDBMS is
its ability to hide the complexities of the
relational model from the user

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The Relational Model (continued)

• Table (relations)
– Matrix consisting of a series of row/column
intersections
– Related to each other through sharing a
common entity characteristic
• Relational diagram
– Representation of relational database’s
entities, attributes within those entities, and
relationships between those entities

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The Relational Model (continued)

• Relational Table
– Stores a collection of related entities
• Resembles a file
• Relational table is purely logical structure
– How data are physically stored in the
database is of no concern to the user or the
designer
– This property became the source of a real
database revolution

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The Relational Model (continued)

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The Relational Model (continued)

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The Relational Model (continued)

• Rise to dominance due in part to its powerful and

flexible query language
• Structured Query Language (SQL) allows the user to
specify what must be done without specifying how it
must be done
• SQL-based relational database application involves:
– User interface
– A set of tables stored in the database
– SQL engine

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The Entity Relationship Model

• Widely accepted and adapted graphical tool

for data modeling
• Introduced by Chen in 1976
• Graphical representation of entities and their
relationships in a database structure

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The Entity Relationship Model (continued)

• Entity relationship diagram (ERD)
– Uses graphic representations to model database
components
– Entity is mapped to a relational table
• Entity instance (or occurrence) is row in table
• Entity set is collection of like entities
• Connectivity labels types of relationships
– Diamond connected to related entities through a
relationship line

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The Entity Relationship Model (continued)

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The Entity Relationship Model (continued)

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The Object Oriented Model

• Modeled both data and their relationships in a

single structure known as an object
• Object-oriented data model (OODM) is the
basis for the object-oriented database
management system (OODBMS)
• OODM is said to be a semantic data model

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The Object Oriented Model (continued)

• Object described by its factual content

– Like relational model’s entity
• Includes information about relationships between
facts within object, and relationships with other
objects
– Unlike relational model’s entity
• Subsequent OODM development allowed an object
to also contain all operations
• Object becomes basic building block for autonomous
structures

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The Object Oriented Model (continued)

• Object is an abstraction of a real-world entity

• Attributes describe the properties of an object
• Objects that share similar characteristics are
grouped in classes
• Classes are organized in a class hierarchy
• Inheritance is the ability of an object within
the class hierarchy to inherit the attributes
and methods of classes above it

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The Object Oriented Model (continued)

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Other Models

• Extended Relational Data Model (ERDM)

– Semantic data model developed in response
to increasing complexity of applications
– DBMS based on the ERDM often described as
an object/relational database management
system (O/RDBMS)
– Primarily geared to business applications

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Database Models and the Internet

• Internet drastically changed role and scope of

database market
• OODM and ERDM-O/RDM have taken a
backseat to development of databases that
interface with Internet
• Dominance of Web has resulted in growing
need to manage unstructured information

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Data Models: A Summary

• Each new data model capitalized on the

shortcomings of previous models
• Common characteristics:
– Conceptual simplicity without compromising the
semantic completeness of the database
– Represent the real world as closely as possible
– Representation of real-world transformations
(behavior) must comply with consistency and integrity
characteristics of any data model

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Data Models: A Summary (continued)

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Degrees of Data Abstraction

• Way of classifying data models

• Many processes begin at high level of
abstraction and proceed to an ever-
increasing level of detail
• Designing a usable database follows the
same basic process

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Degrees of Data Abstraction (continued)

• American National Standards Institute (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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Degrees of Data Abstraction (continued)

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The External Model

• End users’ view of the data environment

• Requires that the modeler subdivide set of
requirements and constraints into functional
modules that can be examined within the
framework of their external models

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The External Model (continued)

• 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
– Creation of external models helps to ensure
security constraints in the database design
– Simplifies application program development

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The External Model (continued)

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The Conceptual Model

• Represents global view of the entire database

• Representation of data as viewed by the
entire organization
• Basis for identification and high-level
description of main data objects, avoiding
details
• Most widely used conceptual model is the
entity relationship (ER) model

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The Conceptual Model (continued)

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The Conceptual Model (continued)

• 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 either hardware or DBMS software have no
effect on the database design at the conceptual level

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The Internal Model

• Representation of the database as “seen” by

the DBMS
• Maps the conceptual model to the DBMS
• Internal schema depicts a specific
representation of an internal model

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The Internal Model (continued)

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The Physical Model

• Operates at lowest level of abstraction,

describing the way data are saved on storage
media such as disks or tapes
• Software and hardware dependent
• Requires that database designers have a
detailed knowledge of the hardware and
software used to implement database design

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The Physical Model (continued)

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Summary

• A data model is a (relatively) simple

abstraction of a complex real-world data
environment
• Basic data modeling components are:
– Entities
– Attributes
– Relationships
– Constraints

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Summary (continued)

• Hierarchical model
– Depicts a 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 popular graphical tool for data modeling
that complements the relational model

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Summary (continued)

• Object is basic modeling structure of object oriented

data model
• The relational model has adopted many object-
oriented extensions to become the extended
relational data model (ERDM)
• Data modeling requirements are a function of
different data views (global vs. local) and level of data
abstraction

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