Data Warehouse Info

 
What is a data model?
 
A data model is a diagram that uses test and symbols to represent groupings of data so that the reader
can understand the actual data better.
 
For example a spreadsheet groups data in columns, there is a column for Last Name, First Name and so
on. A row on a spreadsheet would represent a record, and each column would represent a data
element. A data model takes things this idea a step further, showing not only the column heading but
also how the heading relate to each other.
 
Example:
 
Person's Person's Company Name e-mail Address Web Address
Name Title

Mary K. President Mary K Smith Global mks@maryksmith.com www.maryksmith.com

Smith IT Consulting

Michael W. Attorney Bronson, Waters & mwclayton@bwglaw.org www.bwglaw.org

Clayton Green Law Firm
 
 

 
 
Data - The raw facts that have little meaning unless they have been organized in some logical manner .
The smallest piece of data that can be recognized by the computer is a single character, such as the
letter A, the number 5, or some symbol as /. A single character requires one byte of computer storage.
 
Field - A character or group of characters (alphabetic or numeric) that has a specific meaning. A field
might define a telephone number, a birth date, a customer name, a year-to-date, sales value, and so
on.
 
Record- A logically connected set of one or more fields that describes a person, place or thing. For
example the fields that constitutes a record for a customer named J.D. Rudd consist of J.D. Rudd's
name, address, phone number, date of birth, credit limit, and unpaid balance.
 
File- A collection of related records. For example, a file might contain data about vendors of ROBCOR
Company; or a file might contain the records for the students currently enrolled at Gigantic University.
 
 
 

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Screen clipping taken: 1/11/2008, 5:46 PM
 
C_NAME = Customer Name A_NAME= Agent Name
C_PHONE = Customer Phone A_PHONE= Agent Phone
C_ADDRESS=Customer Address TP= Insurance Type
C_ZIP= Customer Zip AMT=Insurance Policy Amount
REN= Insurance Renewal Date
 

 
Screen clipping taken: 1/11/2008, 6:33 PM
 
A_NAME= Agent Name YTD_PAY= Year-To-Date Pay
A_PHONE=Agent Phone YTD_FIT= Year-To-Date Federal Income Tax Paid
A_ADDRESS= Agent Address YTD_FICA= Year-To-Date Social Security Paid
ZIP= Address ZIP Code YTD_SLS=Year-To-Date Sales
HIRED= Agent Date of Hire DEP= Number of Dependents
 
 
 
 
Process Flow:

 
 
 
 
Using the proper file terminology shown above , we can identify the file components shown
(above). For example the CUSTOMER file contains 6 records. Each record is composed of nine
fields: C_NAME, C_PHONE, C_ADDRESS, C_ZIP, A_NAME, A_PHONE, C_ADDRESS, C_ZIP, A_NAME,
A_PHONE, TP, AMT and REN. The six records are stored in a named file CUSTOMER.
 

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 In this example using the CUSTOMER file a developer wrote a program that produced very useful
reports for the sales department:
 
 Monthly summaries that showed the types and amount of insurance sold by each agent.
(Such reports might be used to analyze each agents productivity)
 Monthly checks to determine which customers must be contacted for renewal
 Repots that analyzed the ratios of insurance types sold by each agent
 Periodic customer contacts contact letters designed to summarize coverage and to provide
various customer relations bonuses.
 
The Sales Department would represent an entity, the File Management Programs would represent a
particular Data Mart for SALES, within a Data Warehouse. The CUSTOMER file would be a data
extract which is created within the SALES Data Mart. The CUSTOMER file is then transferred to the
File Reports Program, which is an application (Web-Base) which produces reports of the business
unit, this application would also most likely have data querying capabilities.
 
A Database Model is a collection of logical constructs used to represent the data structure and the
data relationships found within the database.
 
Types of Relationships:
 
(1) One-To-Many Relationships: A painter paints many different paintings, but each one of them is
painted by only that painter. Thus the painter (the "one") is related to the paintings (the "many").
Therefore, database designers label the relationship "PAINTER paints PAINTING" as 1:M. Similarly a
customer account (the "one") might contain many invoices (the "many") are related to only a single
customer account. The "CUSTOMER generates INVOICE" relationship would also be labeled 1:M.
 
(2) Many-To-Many Relationship: An employee might learn many job skills, and each job skill might
be learned by many employees. Database designers label the relationship "EMPLOYEE learns SKILL"
as M:N. Similarly a student can take many courses, and each course can be taken by many
students, thus yielding the M:N relationship label for the relationship expressed by "STUDENT takes
COURSE".
 
(3) One-To-One Relationship: A retail company's management structure may require that each of
its stores be managed by a single employee. In turn, each store manager who is an employee - only
manages a single store. Therefore, the relationship "EMPLOYEE manages STORE" is labeled 1:1.
 
Examples:

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Screen clipping taken: 1/12/2008, 7:24 PM
 
Another well established version of the ERD is the "crow's foot model", the label "Crows Foot" is
derived from the three-pronged symbol used to represent the "many" side of the relationship:
 

paints
PAINTER PAINTING
 
 
 
 
 

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Table Name: CUSTOMER
Primary Key: CUS_NUM
Foreign Key: None
 

 
Table Name: INVOICE
Primary Key: INV_NUMBER
Foreign Key: CUS_CODE
 
 

 
Table Name: LINE
Primary Key: INV_NUMBER +LINE_NUMBER
Foreign Key: INV_NUMBER, PROD_CODE
 
 
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Table Name: PRODUCT
Primary Key: PROD_CODE
Foreign Key: None