Data Modeling Made Simple: A Practical Guide for Business and IT Professionals - Steve Hoberman

\n \nData Modeling Made Simple will provide the business or IT professional with a practical working knowledge of data modeling concepts and best practices. This book is written in a conversational style that encourages you to read it from start to finish and master these ten objectives: \n \n- Know when a data model is needed and which type of data model is most effective for each situation \n- Read a data model of any size and complexity with the same confidence as reading a book \n- Build a fully normalized relational data model, as well as an easily navigatable dimensional model \n- Apply techniques to turn a logical data model into an efficient physical design \n- Leverage several templates to make requirements gathering more efficient and accurate \n- Explain all ten categories of the Data Model Scorecard \n- Learn strategies to improve your working relationships with others \n- Appreciate the impact unstructured data has, and will have, on our data modeling deliverables \n- Learn basic UML concepts \n- Put data modeling in context with XML, metadata, and agile development \nBook Review by Johnny Gay \n In this book review, I address each section in the book and provide what I found most valuable as a data modeler. I compare, as I go, how the book's structure eases the new data modeler into the subject much like an instructor might ease a beginning swimmer into the pool. \n \n This book begins like a Dan Brown novel. It even starts out with the protagonist, our favorite data modeler, lost on a dark road somewhere in France. In this case, what saves him isn't a cipher, but of all things, something that's very much like a data model in the form of a map! The author deems they are both way-finding tools. \n \n