I have an interesting problem on hand. I have a large model in Erwin – My logical data model is almost at the level of physical model. Hence, to present the model to the business analysts and programmers, I needed to create a Logical Data Model that looks like a Business Object Model. I find that most people find it difficult to understand the relationships expressed in ER notation. Even after lot of explanation, people don’t get feel comfortable with the ER notation which reverses the normal way that we express an entity.
For example, if I have an employee and multiple addresses, in a class model, we will have employee as a class with addresses as a collection entity. Whereas in the data model, address will have a FK relationship with a cardinality of 1 to many from employee to address.
I want to find a way to present the data model in a diagram structure which makes it easy to understand in a top-down fashion, if you will.
Any suggestions here on what tools/ideas that I can use? I have the full model available in Erwin and in SQL Server. I have access to Erwin, Vision, Microsoft Visual Studio and Enterprise Architect
Object Role Modelling is ideal for conceptual models independent of implementation. ORM is a better medium for sharing and communicating models than ERDs. It’s also very useful to be able to create the conceptual model first and then generate the database from it using a tool like NORMA.