OVERVIEW

 

Even a cursory inspection of data management practice reveals that the majority of practitioners—be they novices, or experienced, users or vendors—operate in a “cookbook”, product-specific mode, without really knowing and understanding the fundamental concepts and principles underlying their field. This is not entirely their fault: neither does the industry require, nor does the educational system provide an education—as distinct from product training—in data fundamentals, which are ignored, distorted, or incorrectly dismissed in daily practice as “just theory” and, therefore, without practical value.

 

The consequences are very costly: the IT industry operates like the fashion industry, because practitioners are unable to see through the so-called “paradigms” and “models” and the ensuing technology and product fads proliferated by marketeers, “experts” and the trade press, who suffer from an equal lack of knowledge. The problem is so acute that, claims of progress notwithstanding, technology is actually regressing!

 

OBJECTIVES

 

There are few data management aspects that are as thoroughly misunderstood, confused, and abused as data modeling and database design, particularly the concepts of conceptual model, data model, and logical model.

 

The purposes of this presentation are:

 

(a)  to offer a systematic methodology for conceptual modeling and database design

(b)  to use it as a basis for a sound, foundation framework within which to evaluate data management technologies, products and practices

(c)  to demonstrate the approach’s practical value by applying it to debunk current industry buzz

 

OUTLINE

 

·         INTRODUCTION

·         WHAT MEANING MEANS

·         CONCEPTUAL MODELING

§   GRAPHICAL REPRESENTATION

§   BUSINESS RULES

·         DATABASE DESIGN

§   FORMALIZING THE INFORMAL

§   PREDICATES AND PROPOSITIONS

§   RELATIONAL DATA MODEL

§   LOGICAL MODELS

·         DATABASE MANAGEMENT

§   TRUTH AND CORRECTNESS

§   DATABASE DEFINED

§   DBMS DEFINED

·         A FOUNDATION FRAMEWORK

·         APPLYING THE FRAMEWORK

§    “UNSTRUCTURED”/”SEMI-STRUCTURED” DATA

§   DATABASE “DESIGN”

§   “BUSINESS RULES APPROACH”

§   “DBMSLESS” DBMS

§   ALTERNATIVE “DATA MODELS”

§   DATABASE AND DBMS “DEFINITIONS”

§   PRODUCT/TECHNOLOGY/PRACTICE “EVALUATION”

·         CONCLUSION

 

 

DOCUMENTATION

 

Workbook containing the instructor’s slides.

 

 

INSTRUCTOR

 

Fabian Pascal has a national and international reputation as an independent technology analyst, consultant, author, and instructor of seminars, specializing in data management. He was affiliated with Codd & Date and for more than 20 years held various analytical and management positions in the private and public sectors, has taught and lectured at the business and academic levels, and advised vendor and user organizations on data management technology, strategy and implementation. Clients include IBM, Census Bureau, CIA, Apple, Borland, Cognos, UCSF, and IRS. He is founder, editor and publisher of DATABASE DEBUNKINGS, a web site dedicated to dispelling persistent fallacies, myths and misconceptions prevalent in the IT industry. The site publishes his own and C. J. Date’s series of papers, as well as PRACTICAL DATABASE FOUNDATIONS series of papers dedicated to explaining the logic foundations of database management to the IT practitioner. Author of three books, he has published extensively in most trade publications, including DM Review, Database Programming and Design, DBMS, Byte, Infoworld and Computerworld, and DBAzine.com. He is author of the contrarian columns Setting Matters Straight, and Test Your Foundation Knowledge, as well as of one for the Dutch DB/M magazine.

 

 

Updated 9/23/05