Gain Insight Into Business Structure Using (and Re-Using)
Data Model Patterns Found in Many Types of Business!
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About the Book
Learning the basics of a modeling technique is not the same as learning how to use and apply it. To develop a data model of an organization is to gain insights into its nature that do not come easily. Indeed, analysts are often expected to understand subtleties of an organization's structure that may have evaded people who have worked there for years.
Here's help for those analysts who have learned the basics of data modeling (or 'entity/relationship modeling') but who need to obtain the insights required to prepare a good model of a real business. Structures common to many types of business are analyzed in areas such as accounting, material requirements planning, process manufacturing, contracts, laboratories, and documents.
Topics
In each chapter, high-level data models are drawn from the following business areas:
The Enterprise and Its World
The Things of the Enterprise
Procedures and Activities
Contracts
Accounting
The Laboratory
Material Requirements Planning
Process Manufacturing
Documents
Lower-Level Conventions
Features
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Excerpts Table of Contents
Reviews
'Would you rather not reinvent the wheel? Do you have better things to do with your time? If so, you may be interested in David Hay's book Data Model Patterns. . . . Hay does an excellent job of extracting the essence of each 'thing' in order to deal with it as more of an abstraction. This results in much simpler and more powerful data models that are less dependent on cosmetic variation. . . . Once you begin to see these new patterns, you will have a new way of viewing the world of data.'
--Patrick O'Brien
St. Louis DAMA Newsletter
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'occasionally a book comes along that can be considered a classic; that isn't tied to any particular product or version. David Hay's book, Data Model Patterns: Conventions of Thought, is such a book. . . . This is a book that can and should be used for years. No matter what your job function in the RDBMS industry, you'll find great value from this book. It should be mandatory reading before starting any major data modeling or application development task. No other author has gone beyond the theoretical methodology of creating a data model to actually present and analyze real-world models that we can use every day. This book is well written and well illustrated with numerous examples of the models discussed. This is a 'must buy' for your professional library.'
--Warren Capps
Oracle Developer
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'. . . one of the practical values of your book is the set of 'ready to use' models for the most typical applications in many industries. . . . You express your ideas in very simple and easy to understand language. This is how I think such books should be written.'
--Mark Gokman
New York Power Authority
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'Hay covers a wide range of topics. Patterns includes four chapters on the basic subject areas of people and organizations, products amd inventory, procedures and activities, and accounting. . . . Patterns also includes detailed footnotes and references, a useful bibliography, and a very detailed index . . . The informal writing style of Patterns includes frequent humor . . . For a tehnical book, it was fun to read.'
--Data to Knowledge
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'This is one of the best practical books on database design I've encountered. . . . includes scads of examples ranging from accounting to inventory to contracts. A well-illustrated, readable 268 pages.'
--Karen Watterson
Microsoft SQL Server Professional
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'I found the book articulate and well-ordered, which for a subject as abstruse as data modelling is quite some achievement.'
--Howard Benbrook
Oracle Corporation
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'If analysts use the well-proven modelling approach described in this book, and implement the results on relational or object database management systems, they should be able to develop highly business-oriented systems quickly.'
--Richard Barker
from the foreword
