DD 2 1
DD 2 1
2-1
Conceptual and Physical Models
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Conceptual and Physical Models
Purpose
• When you are able to recognize and analyze
information, you can better understand how things
work and potentially make them better.
• For example:
– How to make the line at the food counter go faster
– How to successfully exchange an item at the store
– How to organize and keep track of your growing CD collection
• Also, recognizing and analyzing information helps
prevent mistakes and misunderstanding. For a
business, this is important because it saves time and
money.
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Conceptual and Physical Models
What is a Conceptual Model?
A conceptual model:
• Captures the functional and informational needs of a
business
• Is based on current needs but it may reflect future
needs
• Addresses the needs of a business (what is conceptually
ideal), but does not address its implementation (what is
physically possible)
• Is the result of completing the Data Modeling process
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Conceptual and Physical Models
What is a Conceptual Model?
A conceptual model:
• Identifies :
– important entities (objects that become tables in database)
– relationships among entities
• Does not specify :
– attributes (objects that become columns or fields in
database)
– unique identifiers (attribute that becomes primary key in
database).
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Conceptual and Physical Models
What is a Conceptual Model?
A conceptual model is important to a business because it:
• Describes exactly the information needs of the business
• Facilitates discussion
• Prevents mistakes and misunderstandings
• Forms important “ideal system” documentation
• Forms a sound basis for physical database design
• Documents the processes (also known as the “business
rules”) of the business
• Takes into account regulations and laws governing this
industry
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Conceptual and Physical Models
What is a Logical Model?
A logical model:
• Includes all entities and relationships among them.
• Is called an entity relationship model (ERM).
• Is illustrated in an ERD.
• Specifies all attributes and UIDs for each entity.
• Determines attribute optionality.
• Determines relationship optionality and cardinality.
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Conceptual and Physical Models
What Is a Physical Model?
A physical model:
• Is an extension to a logical data model.
– Defines table definitions, data types, and precision.
– Identifies views, indexes, and other database objects.
• Describes how the objects should be implemented in
specific database.
• Shows all table structures, including columns, primary
keys, and foreign keys.
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Conceptual and Physical Models
Conceptual and Physical Models
• It is the art of planning, developing, and communicating
that allows a group of people to work together to
achieve a desired outcome.
• Data modeling is the process of capturing the important
concepts and rules that shape a business and depicting
them visually on a diagram.
• This diagram becomes the blueprint for designing the
physical thing.
• The client’s dream (conceptual model) will become a
physical reality (physical model).
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Conceptual and Physical Models
Terminology
Key terms used in this lesson included:
• Conceptual model
• Data
• Data modeling
• Physical model
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Conceptual and Physical Models
Summary
In this lesson, you should have learned how to:
• Explain the importance of clearly communicating and
accurately capturing information requirements
• Distinguish between a conceptual model and its
physical implementation
• List five reasons for building a conceptual data model
• Give examples of conceptual models and physical
models
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Conceptual and Physical Models