ERD Example 3

Problem 1a:
After completing a course in database management, you are asked to develop a
preliminary ERD for a symphony orchestra. You discover that you should have a few
entities. During further discussion you discover the following:

A concert season schedules one or more concerts. A particular concert is

schedule for only one concert season.
A concert include the performance of one or more compositions. A
composition may be performed at one or more concerts or may not be
performed.
For each concert there is one conductor. A conductor may conduct any
number of concerts or may not conduct any concerts.
Each composition may require one or more soloists or may not require a
soloist. A soloist may perform one or more composition at a given concert or
may not perform any composition. The symphony orchestra wishes to record
the date when a soloist last performed a given composition (date last
performed).

Dra an ERD to represent what you have discovered. Identify a business rule in this
description and explain how this business rule is modeled on the ER diagram.

Problem 1b:
Normalize the above problem to 3NF.

Solutions are on the next page!

Solutions:
Business Rule: A concert includes
the performance of one or more
compositions; a composition may
be performed at one or more
concerts or may not be performed.
This business rule is modeled in
the ERD above through the use of
the
COMPOSITION
and
CONCERT entities, together with
the PERFORMANCE Associative
Entity.
Note: The use of the Associative
Entity PERFORMANCE also
permits the independent binary
relationship between SOLOIST
and PERFORMANCE, which
permits the model to support the
tracking of derived data, Date Last
Performed. Although the diagram
appears to have a ternary
relationship
among
COMPOSITION,
CONCERT,
SOLOIST and PERFORMANCE,
such a ternary relationship would
not support the requirements of the
problem. Rather, the needs of the
problem state that there is an
overall M:N binary relationship
between
SOLOIST
and
PERFORMANCE, which permits
the tracking of multiple soloists
performing any given composition
as well as a given soloist
performing multiple compositions.

1b:

Notice, you had 7 entities in 1a (the 2 additional ones are because you had
a multivalued attribute movement & concert event)