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The Data Model Resource Book, Vol. 1: A Library of Universal Data Models for All Enterprises

The Data Model Resource Book, Vol. 1: A Library of Universal Data Models for All Enterprises

List Price: $65.00
Your Price: $59.70
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Helpful Resource
Review: 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!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A Helpful Resource
Review: 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!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent Resource for any Database Developer
Review: If you are looking to save time and money developing and implementing databases, look no further than this book. The Data Model Resource Book by Len Silverston is an excellent roadmap for various data models and has served as a valuable reference for me in numerous projects. I will continue to take advantage of this resource in the future.

These data models are both practical and efficient and work in a real-world environment. Len has over 20 years of experience and knowledge that is passed along in this book. I highly recommend The Data Model Resource Book to anyone.


Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Belongs on Every Developer's Desk
Review: If you're tired of reinventing a data model for each and every project, Silverston's book is a great resource. At 540 pages (almost 200 more than the original), it provides a plethora of reusable data models complete with detailed discussion and analysis. His models seem more practical than those in similar books. I used the first edition as a reference and I expect that I'll use the second edition even more.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The book that Wall Street has been waiting years for.
Review: Len Silverston has managed to create a book that matches the data modeling needs of Wall Street. Wall Street demands a balance of a speed to market(the templates in the book) with the ability to customize a design as a competitive advantage(the recommendations on how to extend the models in the book). Len Silverston's template models enable a project to jump 6 months ahead of schedule while allowing the extensions that are required by users.

Also, the content in Len Silverton's book provides immediate use to the reader. It is easy to see that a lot of sincere thought was put into determining which subject areas(the party, product, order, etc) are truly universal.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: What a time saver and valuable resource!
Review: 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!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: The first or next Data Modeling book you should buy!
Review: Simply put, this is a great resource to have for the novice or well versed data modeler. The book is is broken down into helpful sections such as: People & Organizations, Accounting & Budgeting and even a chapter on how to implement the Universal Data Model. This is exactly what you would expect from modeling gurus such as Len Silverston, Bill Inmon & Natalie Arsenault. A must have!!!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Somewhat useful, but disappointing
Review: Summary:

These books contain some useful information, but overall are disappointing. I would recommend buying the books, but I wouldn't recommend believing that these books are going to help you achieve a data modeling quick start.

The bad stuff:

The models in the books are so generic and abstract that they cannot be considered "ready-to-use" in any sense. You will almost certainly have to make some significant adjustments.

Also, these books take a long time getting to the point. Consider that a discussion of physical database design isn't provided until chapter 15 of the book. Who would want to read a cookbook, data or otherwise, and have to suffer through 14 chapters of abstractions before finally getting around to talking about cooking in chapter 15? Not me.

Worse, once in chapter 15, the reader discovers that the author is quick to drop some of his preachy notions of supertypes/subtypes of chapters 1 - 14 as soon as the author has to actually do something real with a plain ol' non-polymorphic physical design. There's nothing wrong with what the author presents in chapter 15. It is sound. However, given the designs of chapter 15, why force the reader to suffer through a bunch of preaching about supertypes and subtypes in chapters 1 - 14? Let's face it, supertypes and subtypes are just wishful thinking in RDBMS land.

The books seem to be way too verbose. Too many pages are dedicated to fluff that does little more than state common sense. Anybody accustomed to reading dense technical material will probably be a little bit frustrated when reading these books, as these books are anything but dense. While reading these books there's always the aggravating feeling of "when are we going to get to the point?" and "where's the useful stuff?"

The good stuff:

The models in the books are useful for providing suggestions of entities/attributes/relationships to consider when modeling data. In other words, the models may be used as a sort of second check during modeling work to make sure that potentially important entities/attributes/relationships haven't been overlooked.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Somewhat useful, but disappointing
Review: Summary:

These books contain some useful information, but overall are disappointing. I would recommend buying the books, but I wouldn't recommend believing that these books are going to help you achieve a data modeling quick start.

The bad stuff:

The models in the books are so generic and abstract that they cannot be considered "ready-to-use" in any sense. You will almost certainly have to make some significant adjustments.

Also, these books take a long time getting to the point. Consider that a discussion of physical database design isn't provided until chapter 15 of the book. Who would want to read a cookbook, data or otherwise, and have to suffer through 14 chapters of abstractions before finally getting around to talking about cooking in chapter 15? Not me.

Worse, once in chapter 15, the reader discovers that the author is quick to drop some of his preachy notions of supertypes/subtypes of chapters 1 - 14 as soon as the author has to actually do something real with a plain ol' non-polymorphic physical design. There's nothing wrong with what the author presents in chapter 15. It is sound. However, given the designs of chapter 15, why force the reader to suffer through a bunch of preaching about supertypes and subtypes in chapters 1 - 14? Let's face it, supertypes and subtypes are just wishful thinking in RDBMS land.

The books seem to be way too verbose. Too many pages are dedicated to fluff that does little more than state common sense. Anybody accustomed to reading dense technical material will probably be a little bit frustrated when reading these books, as these books are anything but dense. While reading these books there's always the aggravating feeling of "when are we going to get to the point?" and "where's the useful stuff?"

The good stuff:

The models in the books are useful for providing suggestions of entities/attributes/relationships to consider when modeling data. In other words, the models may be used as a sort of second check during modeling work to make sure that potentially important entities/attributes/relationships haven't been overlooked.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Well earned 5 stars
Review: The amount of work put into this book deserves more than a 5 star rating. The book covers a variety of data models and presents nearly a hundred diagrams. The author has been a consultant for database design for 20 years. This is a great work and his experience shows.


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