Chapter 3

Database Modeling

Fundamental of Database System 1

• Database modeling :designing successful database
application where database application refers to
specific database like Company database or
University database.
• Conceptual modeling is an important phase in
designing a successful database application.
• The Entity-Relationship (ER) model, is a popular
high-level conceptual data model for designing
database applications.
• This model and its variations are frequently used for
the conceptual design of database applications, and
many database design tools employ its concepts.
Fundamental of Database System 2
• E/R modeling is based on the concept of
Entities, attributes and relationships.
• Creating an Entity-Relationship Model
involves:
1. Identify entities
2. Identify entity attributes and primary keys
3. Specify relationships

Fundamental of Database System 3

 Entities and Their Attributes
• The basic object that the ER model represents is an
entity, which is a "thing" in the real world with an
independent existence.
• An entity may be an object with a physical existence
—a particular person, car, house, or employee—or it
may be an object with a conceptual existence—a
company, a job, or a university course.
• Each entity has attributes—the particular properties
that describe it.
For example, an employee entity may be described by
the employee’s name, age, address, salary, and job.
Fundamental of Database System 4
• A particular entity will have a value for each of its
attributes.
• The attribute values that describe each entity become
a major part of the data stored in the database.
• For example, an employee entity may have the
attributes employee’s name, age, address, salary, and
job and attribute values.

Fundamental of Database System 5

 Types of Attributes
• Simple attribute − Simple attributes are atomic values,
which cannot be divided further. For example, a student's
phone number is an atomic value of 10 digits.
• Composite attribute − Composite attributes are made of
more than one simple attribute. For example, a student's
complete name may have first_name and last_name.
• Derived attribute − Derived attributes are the attributes
that do not exist in the physical database, but their values
are derived from other attributes present in the database.
For example, average_salary in a department should not
be saved directly in the database, instead it can be
derived. For another example, age can be derived from
data_of_birth. Fundamental of Database System 6
 Types of Attributes

• Single-value attribute − Single-value attributes contain

single value. For example − Social_Security_Number.
• Multi-value attribute − Multi-value attributes may contain
more than one values. For example, a person can have
more than one phone number, email_address, etc.

Fundamental of Database System 7

 Entity Types entity sets and Key
Attributes
• A database usually contains groups of entities that are
similar.
• For example, a company employing hundreds of
employees may want to store similar information
concerning each of the employees.
• These employee entities share the same attributes, but
each entity has its own value(s) for each attribute.
• An entity type defines a collection (or set) of entities
that have the same attributes.
• Each entity type in the database is described by its
name and attributes.
Fundamental of Database System 8
• The collection of all entities of a particular
entity type in the database at any point in time
is called an entity set; the entity set is usually
referred to using the same name as the entity
type. For example, EMPLOYEE refers to both
a type of entity as well as the current set of all
employee entities in the database.

Fundamental of Database System 9

• An entity set is a set consisting of the same
type of entities that share same properties.
Some specific examples of entities are
EMPLOYEES, PROJECTS, CUSTOMERS …
Then The “EMPLOYEES” entity set represents
all the set of employees and the “Projects”
entity set represents all the set of projects.

Fundamental of Database System 10

Entities are classified as independent (Strong) or
dependent (Weak).
• A strong (independent) entity is one that does not
rely on other entities for identification.
• Entity types that do have a key attribute are
sometimes called strong entity types.
• A weak (dependent) entity is one that relies on other
entities for identification.
• Entity types that do not have key attributes of their
own are called weak entity types
An individual occurrence of an entity set is also known
as an instance (object).

Fundamental of Database System 11

 Keys
Unique keys Non unique keys

• Data value is unique for • Data value may be shared

each row among several rows, key
• So the key uniquely will identify set of rows
specify a single row • The value of the column
Unique keys are classified as: may be the same for more
than one row.
 composite key
• Foreign key is an example
 Candidate key of non unique key
 primary key
 Surrogate key
Fundamental of Database System 12
 Unique key
1. Composite key:- is a unique key composed of two
or more attributes and uniquely identify the row.
2. Candidate key:- it is called candidate because it
has the potential to become the primary key.
3. Primary key:- is a Candidate key chosen to be the
main key for the relation.
4. Surrogate key:- is a unique key in which numeric
value is added to serve as the primary key. Often
used in place of a composite primary key.

Fundamental of Database System 13

 Non unique key
• Foreign key:- it s a primary key from table that
is placed into another table for the purpose of
linking the tables.
• The key is called foreign key in the table that
receives the key.

Fundamental of Database System 14

 Relationship
• A Relationship represents an association between
two or more entities. An example of a relationship
would be:
• - “EMPLOYEES” are Assigned to “TEAMS”
• - “CUSTOMERS” Owns “PROJECTS”
• - “TEAMS” works on “PROJECTS”
• A Relationship Set is then a set consisting same
types of relationships. The entities involved in
the relationship are known as participating entities
and the function the entity plays in a relationship is
called the entity’s role.
Fundamental of Database System 15
• Example: In the Assigned relationship “EMPLOYEES”
and “TEAMS” entity sets are the participating entity
sets; and the “EMPLOYEES” entity has a role as a
“Programmer” or “Team Leader” in the relationship.
• Relationships are classified in terms of degree,
connectivity, cardinality, and existence.
• Degree: The degree of a relationship is the number
of entities associated with the relationship.
• The n-ary (multi-way) relationship is the general
form for degree n. Special cases are the binary, and
ternary, where the degree is 2, and 3, respectively.

Fundamental of Database System 16

• Connectivity: The connectivity of a relationship
describes the mapping of associated entity
instances in the relationship.
• The values of connectivity are “one” or “many”.
• Cardinality: The cardinality of a relationship is
the actual number of related occurrences for each
of the two entities.
• The basic types of connectivity for relations are:
a) one-to-one
b) one-to-many
c) many-to -one
d) and many-to-many.
Fundamental of Database System 17
a) ONE-TO-ONE: one tuple is associated with
only one other tuple.
– E.g. Building – Locatio as a single building will
be located in a single location and as a single
location will only accommodate a single Building.
b) ONE-TO-MANY, one tupelo can be associated with
many other tuples, but not the reverse.
– E.g. Department-Student as one department can
have multiple students.
• c) MANY-TO-ONE, many tuples are associated with
one tuple but not the reverse.
– E.g. Employee – Department: as many employees
belong to a single department.

Fundamental of Database System 18

d)MANY-TO-MANY: one tuple is associated
with many other tuples and from the other
side, with a different role name one tuple will
be associated with many tuples
– E.g. Student – Course as a student can take many
courses and a single course can be attended by
many students.

Fundamental of Database System 19

Fundamental of Database System 20
• Existence: denotes whether the existence of an
entity instance is dependent upon the existence
of another, related, entity instance.
• The existence of an entity in a relationship is
defined as either mandatory or optional.

Fundamental of Database System 21

 Cardinality Limits of a Relationship
The credential limit of a relationship is labeled as:
• - 0..* or 0..∞ indicating zero or more
participation of the entity in the relationship.
• - 1..* or 1..∞ indicating one or more
participation of the entity in the relationship.
• - 0..1 indicating zero or one participation of the
entity in the relationship.
• - 1..1 indicating exactly one participation of the
entity in the relationship.
Fundamental of Database System 22
 Database Design
• The Three levels of Database Design
Conceptual design
Logical design
Physical design
Physical Database Design
• „ Physical design is the process of producing a description
of the implementation of the database on secondary
storage. -- defines specific storage or access methods used
by database.
• Describes the storage structures and access methods used
to achieve efficient access to the data. „
• Includes estimate of storage space
Fundamental of Database System 23
Logical Database Design
• „ Logical design is the process of constructing
a model of the information used in an
enterprise based on a specific data model (e.g.
relational, hierarchical or network or object),
but independent of a particular DBMS and
other physical considerations.
• „ Normalization process
• „ Discover new entities
• „ Revise attributes

Fundamental of Database System 24

Conceptual Database Design
• „ Conceptual design revolves around
discovering and analyzing and organizing
organizational and user data requirements
• „ The important activities are to identify
Entities
Attributes
Relationships
Constraints
• „ And based on these components develop the
ER model using ER diagrams
Fundamental of Database System 25
 The Entity Relationship (E-R) Model
• The Entity Relationship (E/R) data model is a diagrammatical data
model.
• Entity-Relationship modeling is used to represent conceptual view
of the database
• „ The main components of ER Modeling are:
o Entities
 Corresponds to entire table, not row
ƒ Represented by Rectangle
o Attributes
 Represents the property used to describe an entity or a relationship
ƒ Represented by Oval
o Relationships
ƒ Represents the association that exist between entities
ƒ Represented by Diamond
o Constraints
ƒ Represent the constraintFundamental of Database System
in the data 26
 Developing an E-R Diagram
• Designing conceptual model for the database is
not a one linear process but an iterative activity
where the design is refined again and again.
• „ To identify the entities, attributes, relationships,
and constraints on the data, there are different set
of methods used during the analysis phase.
• These include information gathered by…
 Interviewing end users individually and in a group
 Questionnaire survey
Direct observation
 Examining different documents
Fundamental of Database System 27
• The basic E-R model is graphically depicted and presented
for review.
• „ The process is repeated until the end users and
designers agree that the E-R diagram is a fair
representation of the organization’s activities and
functions.
• Check for Redundant Relationships in the ER Diagram.
• Relationships between entities indicate access from one
entity to another - it is therefore possible to access one
entity occurrence from another entity occurrence even if
there are other entities and relationships that separate them
- this is often referred to as Navigation' of the ER diagram.
• The last phase in ER modeling is validating an ER Model
against requirement of the user.

Fundamental of Database System 28

 Graphical Representations in ER Diagramming
The elements of the E/R model are represented by:
-Rectangles - for the Entity sets,
- Ellipses - for the Attributes,
- Diamonds - for the Relationships,
- Lines - for the links between the attributes and the entity
sets and between the entity sets and the relationships.

Fundamental of Database System 29

-Double border Rectangles - for the weak entity sets.
- Double border Ellipses - for the multi-valued
attributes.
- Dashed border Ellipses - for the derived attributes.
- Arrow Head Line - for the link between an entity set
and a one-to-one or many-to-one relationship.
- The arrow is headed to the one side entity set.
- PRIMARY KEYS are underlined.

Fundamental of Database System 30

Example 1
• Build an ER Diagram for the following
information:
Students
• „ Have an Id, Name, Dept, Age, Gpa
Courses
• „ Have an Id, Name, Credit Hours
Students
• Enroll in courses and receive a grade

Fundamental of Database System 31

Fundamental of Database System 32
Example 2 build an E-R diagram given the following
information.
- “EMPLOYEES” are Assigned to “TEAMS”
- “CUSTOMERS” Owns “PROJECTS”
- “TEAMS” works on “PROJECTS”
Employees
• have : Empid, Bdate, Name, age and address
Teams
• Have: Name and description
Customers
• Have: customer Id ,name, address
project
• have: name, project id, Sdate, Ddate
Fundamental of Database System 33
Fig: sample E-R model
Fundamental of Database System 34