database design

My copy of both volume 1 and volume 2 have been referenced so many times that they are tattered and worn, but such a valuable resource on all my projects. Whenever I contemplate a design, I first look at this book and, more often than not, I get ideas and best practices on ways to model the construct. I have successfully re-used designs from both volume 1 and 2 and have applied models from both of these books towards the modeling of many industries including distribution, manufacturing, telecommunications, health care, financial services and professional services.

I have found that the models provided are very relevant, re-usable, and of very high quality. They also provide all the details necessary to create physical database designs. They include entities, keys (primary and foreign), relationships (named), attributes, and the appendices include a complete listing and cross referencing of the entities and attributes, which entities are used in which diagrams (in volume 2), and domains that specify the data type and suggested lengths for each attribute. The book provides clear explanations as to why the models are modeled a certain way as well as includes data examples showing the specific instances of data that could be stored in these models.

The data models offered are at what I would consider a mid level of abstraction. Therefore, they offer a good level of flexibility without being overly abstract. The author will use very useful abstractions such as a "party", "product", "agreement" and "work effort" (with many specific subtypes of these entities as they apply to the various industries) but he does not go overboard by including overly generic concepts like "item" "activity", or "thing" entities. What I really like is that the author will often show multiple ways of modeling the same construct and show the pros and cons of the different ways to model a construct. Sometimes specific data modeling constructs are shown and sometimes more abstract entity models are shown.

Both the volume 1 common models and volume 2 industry models have not only saved me time by being able to re-use the constructs, but they have offered some perspectives that did not occur to me and have literally been a life saver to me on many a project. I could not ask for a better reference on data modeling templates and re-usable data modeling examples!

I personally have had great success in many large firms (Investment banking, health insurance) implementing Universal Data models based off the Data Model Resource Book. The book was a very concise useful source for the implementation of both logical, and subsequently physical data models. Some people may criticize so called generalities, but "generalities" are a subjective concept. I have personally have seen much more generic type models that where nowhere near as useful as the models in the Data model resource book.

The bottom line is that these models work in the real world as a jump-start for data projects. If you don't want to get caught in the mire of data modeling, buy this book.

I'm the data architect of an enterprise data warehouse for a large travel and hospitality company. I bought Volume 1 about the same time I discovered my company was purchasing an industry-specific universal model from one of our data warehouse vendors to jump start our efforts. The book has been an excellent reference to have alongside these models. In some cases it verifies the purchased model and in others Len has given me an even better way to model a particular concept.

The many discussions on WHY you would model an entity one way versus another are particularly valuable. I'm not always sure how to adapt a particular part of the model to our business even after reading the discussions (mainly because I don't know enough about that part of our business yet), but the points raised in the book make me aware of things I need to discuss with the business (or look for in source systems) as I approach that area of the model.

The section on creating a physical model was also helpful in my decision to keep the physical model close to the logical (option #3). I'm looking forward to picking up further physical design tips at Len's session at the upcoming TDWI conference.

So read the other reviews and buy the book already. It's practical and so very helpful in getting you going in the right direction!