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Database Models

The document discusses database models, including their purpose and three stages of modeling: conceptual, logical, and physical. A conceptual model shows entities and relationships at a high level without technical details, making it easy to understand. It is the starting point for database design.

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clementmondo80
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24 views

Database Models

The document discusses database models, including their purpose and three stages of modeling: conceptual, logical, and physical. A conceptual model shows entities and relationships at a high level without technical details, making it easy to understand. It is the starting point for database design.

Uploaded by

clementmondo80
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Topic 2: Database Models

As you can tell from the name, it is a model to describe the structure of the database.
Just like a house model is used to help you understand how your house is to be built
based on its structure, data model is used to help you understand the structure of the
database so that you can build it.

Definitions

• A Database Model is a diagram that displays a set of tables and relationship between
these tables.

• Database Model is a logical structure of Database. It describes the design of the


database to reflect entities, attributes, relationship among data, constrains etc. There
are several types of data models in Database Management System. We will cover them
in detail separately.

• Database Model is a collection of concepts to describe the structure of a database.


Purpose of using Database Models

• A Database Model helps design the database at the conceptual, logical and
physical levels.
• It is the structure that helps define the relational tables, primary and foreign keys
and stored products.
• It provides a clear picture of the base data and can be used by database
developers to create a physical database.
• A Database Model is applicable to any software development that involves the
creation of database objects to store and manipulate data. This includes
transactional systems as well as data warehouse systems. It is helpful in
identifying missing and redundant data.
• It ensures that all the data objects that are needed by the database represented
correctly. If there are misrepresentations, it can lead to faulty reports and
incorrect results. Despite being time and labour consuming, it makes for an
easier and cheaper upgrade of an IT infrastructure.

Three Stages of Database Modelling

When a Data Model is being designed, it progresses through three main stages:

1. Conceptual Data Model

2. Logical Data Model

3. Physical Data Model

Definition:

The conceptual model is also known as the High-Level data model that can be used to
describe the conceptual schema when a database system is implemented. It hides the
internal details of physical storage and targets on describing entities, data types,
attributes, relationships and constraints.

The ‘Conceptual Data Model’ provides concepts that are close to the way many users
perceive data.

What does it mean by that?

It means that in Conceptual Data Model or High-Level Data Model, the information
about the structure of the database is given in such a way that a person without a slight
or little of technical knowledge can also understand what the structure of the database
is. You can simply draw this using a pen and paper to conceptualize the structure of the
database that you want. It defines WHAT the system contains.
Explanation: In the figure above, there are three Entities as depicted by the rectangles:
Student, Enrolment and Courses (We will discuss entities later on). The Student and
Course Entities each have direct relationship with the Enrolment Entity, as depicted
with the lines. Each of these three entities would contain different details or “Attributes”
(We will also discuss Attributes later on). So, the student entity would contain student
details, Enrolment entity would contain student enrolment in courses details and the
Courses entity would contain course details. However, since this is the conceptual data
modeling stage of the database design, in this case, we will not have any other concepts
or details other than the Entities and the Relationships. This is how a high-level data
model works. It gives the basic idea of the structure of the database with the concepts
Entity, Relationship and Attributes.

Properties of Conceptual Data Model

• Highly Abstract - which means that it does not contain too much details. It is only at a
high level or surface level.
• Easily Understood - This means that whether you are a technical or nontechnical
person, it is easy to understand.
• Easily enhanced - since it is not a digital document, it can be easily enhanced
• Only Entities are visible - which means no other details or Attributes (to be discussed
later) are visible.
• Abstract Relationship - meaning that we know that there is a relationship established
between certain Entities, but what is the column or attribute under the Entities to which
the relationships are established on? That is not clear yet.
• No Software tool is required to define a Conceptual Data Model - you can simply use a
pen and paper or whiteboard to structure the Database.
Once a Conceptual Data Model is finalized, we can now update it into a Logical Data
Model

Exercise :

Expand on this diagram: how would you add a teacher entity to this diagram?

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