Modelling Business Information: Entity relationship and class modelling for Business Analysts

✍ Scribed by Keith Gordon

• Publisher: BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT
• Year: 2017
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 204
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

It is almost universally accepted that requirements documents for new or enhanced IT systems by business analysts should include a ‘data model’ to represent the information that has to be handled by the system. Starting from first principles, this book will help business analysts to develop the skills required to construct data models through comprehensive coverage of entity relationship and class modelling, in line with, and beyond, the BCS Data Analysis syllabus.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Copyright Page
CONTENTS
LIST OF FIGURES AND TABLES
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
FOREWORD
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
GLOSSARY
INTRODUCTION
PART 1: THE BASICS
1 WHY BUSINESS ANALYSTS SHOULD MODEL INFORMATION
WHAT IS BUSINESS ANALYSIS?
INFORMATION AND DATA
THE IMPORTANCE FOR A BUSINESS ANALYST OF UNDERSTANDING INFORMATION NEEDS
THE ROLE OF MODELS IN BUSINESS ANALYSIS
DATA MODELS AND DATA
ENTITY RELATIONSHIP MODELLING
CLASS MODELLING
USE OF DATA MODELS IN BUSINESS ANALYSIS
WHAT MAKES A GOOD DATA MODEL?
INTRODUCING DATA ANALYSIS
2 MODELLING THE THINGS OF INTEREST TO THE BUSINESS AND THE RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THEM
ENTITIES AND OBJECTS
NAMING OF ENTITY TYPES AND OBJECT CLASSES
INTRODUCTION TO RELATIONSHIPS AND ASSOCIATIONS
RELATIONSHIP NOTATION IN ENTITY RELATIONSHIP MODELS
ASSOCIATION NOTATION IN UML CLASS MODELS
DEGREES OF CARDINALITY AND OPTIONALITY
MULTIPLE RELATIONSHIPS AND ASSOCIATIONS
RECURSIVE RELATIONSHIPS AND REFLEXIVE ASSOCIATIONS
EXERCISES FOR CHAPTER 2
3 MODELLING MORE COMPLEX RELATIONSHIPS
THE PROBLEMS WITH MANY-TO-MANY RELATIONSHIPS AND ASSOCIATIONS
RESOLVING ENTITY RELATIONSHIP MODEL MANY-TO-MANY RELATIONSHIPS
RESOLVING CLASS MODEL MANY-TO-MANY ASSOCIATIONS
THE ‘BILL OF MATERIALS’ STRUCTURE
MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE RELATIONSHIPS AND ASSOCIATIONS
GENERALISATION AND SPECIALISATION IN ENTITY RELATIONSHIP MODELS
GENERALISATION AND SPECIALISATION IN CLASS MODELS
AGGREGATION AND COMPOSITION
EXERCISES FOR CHAPTER 3
4 DRAWING AND VALIDATING INFORMATION MODEL DIAGRAMS
THE MODEL DRAWING PROCESS
IDENTIFYING THE ENTITY TYPES OR THE OBJECT CLASSES
IDENTIFYING THE RELATIONSHIPS OR ASSOCIATIONS
DRAWING THE INITIAL DIAGRAM
VALIDATING THE DIAGRAM
EXERCISES FOR CHAPTER 4
5 RECORDING INFORMATION ABOUT THINGS
REVISITING ENTITY TYPES, OBJECT CLASSES, RELATIONSHIPS AND ASSOCIATIONS
INTRODUCTION TO ATTRIBUTES
THE NAMING OF ATTRIBUTES
ENTITY TYPE, OBJECT CLASS OR ATTRIBUTE?
UNIQUE IDENTIFIERS
DOMAINS
THE UML EXTENDED ATTRIBUTE NOTATION
SHOWING OPERATIONS ON CLASS MODELS
EXERCISES FOR CHAPTER 5
6 RATIONALISING DATA USING NORMALISATION
WHAT IS NORMALISATION?
THE RELATIONAL MODEL OF DATA
THE RULES OF NORMALISATION
STARTING THE NORMALISATION PROCESS
FIRST NORMAL FORM
SECOND NORMAL FORM
THIRD NORMAL FORM
THE THIRD NORMAL FORM DATA MODEL
CANDIDATE KEYS, PRIMARY KEYS AND ALTERNATE KEYS
THE RELATIONSHIP OF NORMALISATION TO MODELLING
EXERCISES FOR CHAPTER 6
PART 2: SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL
7 OTHER MODELLING NOTATIONS
THE IDEF1X NOTATION
THE INFORMATION ENGINEERING NOTATION
THE CHEN NOTATION
COMPARISON OF THE NOTATIONS
8 THE NAMING OF ARTEFACTS ON INFORMATION MODELS
THE NAMING OF ENTITY TYPES OR OBJECT CLASSES
THE NAMING OF DOMAINS
THE NAMING OF ATTRIBUTES
THE NAMING OF RELATIONSHIPS IN ELLIS-BARKER ENTITY RELATIONSHIP MODELS
THE NAMING OF ASSOCIATIONS ON UML CLASS MODELS
9 INFORMATION MODEL QUALITY
GENERICITY AND SPECIFICITY IN MODELS
THE NINE CHARACTERISTICS OF A GOOD DATA MODEL
THE SIX PRINCIPLES OF HIGH QUALITY DATA MODELS
THE FIVE DIMENSIONS OF DATA MODEL QUALITY
THE LAYOUT OF MODELS
10 CORPORATE INFORMATION AND DATA MODELS
THE PROBLEMS
PRINCIPLES FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF A CORPORATE MODEL
11 DATA AND DATABASES
THE DATA LANDSCAPE
DATABASES
12 BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE
THE DATA WAREHOUSE
THE MULTIDIMENSIONAL MODEL OF DATA
DIMENSIONAL MODELLING
13 ADVANCES IN SQL (OR WHY BUSINESS ANALYSTS SHOULD NOT BE IN THE WEEDS)
THE BASICS OF SQL
NEW SQL DATA TYPES
THE FUTURE
IMPLICATIONS FOR BUSINESS ANALYSTS AND INFORMATION MODELLERS
14 TAKING A REQUIREMENTS INFORMATION MODEL INTO DATABASE DESIGN
FIRST-CUT DATABASE DESIGN STAGE
OPTIMISED DATABASE DESIGN STAGE
APPENDICES
APPENDIX A: TABLE OF EQUIVALENCES
APPENDIX B: BIBLIOGRAPHY
APPENDIX C: SOLUTIONS TO THE EXERCISES
INDEX
Back Cover