Data Modeling Essentials, Third Edition provides expert tutelage for data modelers, business analysts and systems designers at all levels. Beginning with the basics, this book provides a thorough grounding in theory before guiding the reader through the various stages of applied data modeling and database design. Later chapters address advanced subjects, including business rules, data warehousing, enterprise-wide modeling and data management. The third edition of this popular book retains its distinctive hallmarks of readability and usefulness, but has been given significantly expanded coverage and reorganized for greater reader comprehension. Authored by two leaders in the field, Data Modeling Essentials, Third Edition is the ideal reference for professionals and students looking for a real-world perspective.
‘I wrote Data Modeling Essentials back in 1992 as a way of closing off my work in data modeling so I could focus on developing my business and my own skill set in other areas. “Here’s everything I know: I’m out of here”. It had the opposite effect, as it created a demand for seminars, masterclasses and the like and I had to keep current to ensure I could meet expectations. In 2000, I had another try, inviting Graham Witt to co-author, not only for the knowledge he brought to the task, but so he could take over as spokesperson for the ideas. It half-worked. But I was still teaching data modeling right up to the publication of The Rosie Project, with Data Modeling Essentials celebrating three editions and twenty years in print.’
— GCS
‘This is basically my PhD thesis, made a bit more practitioner-friendly and without the appendices (which were full of statistical analysis). But I think it’s a book every professional data modeller should read – more so than the much more popular Data Modeling Essentials, which is basically instructional.
If you’re going to be serious about your profession, you need to understand the theoretical foundations. There’s a pretty comprehensive literature review – a history of thinking on the subject since the advent of database management systems in the late 1960s. And it identifies a key controversy, not always articulated, but crucial to how you undertake the work: is data modeling essentially descriptive or creative? I talked to the experts / thought leaders and found serious differences. And then did the largest study of practitioners (actually larger than all the published studies combined) to see which was the better characterization., In a nutshell, data modelling is a design process.
