Click to learn more about author Thomas Frisendal. We need something light – yet still important – to ease our minds in the summertime. As a data modeler I have often experienced serious disconnects between not only business people and myself, but also between the real world and the vocabulary and definitions attributed to it. […]
Roll Call: Visual Graph Data Models Today
Click to learn more about author Thomas Frisendal. Preamble: Five years ago, I wrote a book about a new approach to Data Modeling — one that “turns the inside out.” It discussed visual Graph Data Modeling. For well over 30 years, relational modeling and normalization were the name of the game. One could ask that […]
The Conceptual Model Strikes Back!
“You must unlearn what you have learned” (Master Yoda) The “conceptual” level of Data Modeling has been a stepchild for many years and is mostly forgotten in fast-paced delivery projects today. Since the mid-nineties the legacy toolbox basically offered software-engineering inspired diagramming tools, and they did not communicate well on the business level. Fortunately, a […]
The Psychology of Data Modeling
Click to learn more about author Thomas Frisendal. Data Modeling – For Whom? I am much concerned with the communicative aspects of a data model. Because data models are really vehicles of communication, we need to understand who our “readers” are. In the case of graph data models, developers are just a minority. Many more […]
Ten 2020 Visions for Data Modelers
Click to learn more about author Thomas Frisendal. 2020 is a nice number and sounds comforting. And it is about vision(s). Are there any foresights of importance for data modelers? Well, here are 10 suggestions. No warranties, I suggest you use them as lighthouses, hopefully plotting your course from 2020 onwards. Business Value in Data […]
Data Modeling on the Other Side of the Quagmire
Click to learn more about author Thomas Frisendal. At the DATAVERSITY® Graphorum Conference in Chicago in October I attended Dave McComb’s tutorial on “Data-Centric: Models and Architectures”. At the end, he ran a raffle for his 2018 book, Software Wasteland – How the Application-Centric Mindset is Hobbling our Enterprises (TechnicsPub). I was the lucky winner! […]
Knowledge Graphs and Data Modeling
Click to learn more about author Thomas Frisendal. Trip Report From Graphorum / Data Architecture Summit 2019 On October 14th thru 17th Chicago hosted the two co-located conferences Graphorum and Data Architecture Summit 2019 by DATAVERSITY®. It was two days of good tutorials and two good days of conference presentations. One thing to think about […]
Modeling Misfit Types: Why Type Inheritance Is Not a Good Fit in Data Models
Click to learn more about author Thomas Frisendal. “Complete Consistence” Drives Temporality, … And What Else? In August I published a blog post called The Future History of Time in Data Models. The short version of that story is that if you aim for “Complete Consistence for Temporal Extensions”, you need to work on the […]
The Future History of Time in Data Models
Click to learn more about author Thomas Frisendal. Timely Concerns in Data Models In June I published a blog post called Timely Concerns in Data Models. In summary the concerns that I mentioned in June were: Roles of time (such as Valid Time, Recorded Time, As-Is vs. As-Of, Read timelines, Time Series), The scope of […]
The History of Time in Data Models
Click to learn more about author Thomas Frisendal. In my last blogpost Timely Concerns in Data Models, we looked at the basic challenges of dealing with time dependencies in Data Modeling. I promised to continue this quest by going over the history of these issues. How well have we actually solved these challenges? So, hop […]