Respond to the colleague’s posts regarding:
The Entity Relationship Model
Please explain the purpose of an Entity Relationship Diagram and how it may benefit the organisation and DBA. Please support your information with references.
LP’s post states the following:
An Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) is a data modelling technique that graphically illustrates an information system’s entities and the relationships between those entities.
The elements of an ERD are the entities (database tables), relationships (Cardinality is the number of instances of one entity that can, or must, be associated with each instance of another entity), and attributes (a particular property that describes the entity) (Techopedia Staff, 2020). An ERD is crucial to creating a good database design.
It is a high-level logical data model, which is useful in developing a conceptual design for databases (Techopedia Staff, 2020). The ERD provides a functional, visual layout of the data. It tells a story of the current state and ways structures and organisations within an entity can be altered and the potential effects of these changes (Price, 2018).
It’s mainly used by analysts when designing a database. Using a visual representation of the business helps understand its structure. This information is crucial for business management when formulating strategies and making efficiencies (Sisense Staff, 2020).
Understanding the relationships between entities also helps eliminate ambiguities or unnecessary processes within the organisation (Sisense Staff, 2020). This is the first step to streamlining the business.
References
Price, N. J. (2018, April 18). What Is Entity Relationship Diagramming and Why Is It Important? Retrieved from Diligent Insights: https://insights.diligent.com/entity-relationship-diagramming/what-is-entity-relationship-diagramming-and-why-is-it-important/
Sisense Staff. (2020). What is an Entity Relationship Diagram? Retrieved from Sisense: https://www.sisense.com/glossary/entity-relationship-diagram/
Techopedia Staff. (2020). Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD). Retrieved from Techopedia: https://www.techopedia.com/definition/1200/entity-relationship-diagram-erd
VK’s post states the following:
There are several different types of data modelling techniques are being used today. One of the most common is the Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD). The purpose of organisations/ database administrators using ERD is to show crucial information that applies to an organisation’s data.
An ERD also includes various symbols and connectors to show organisations/ database administrators two essential visual elements, which are the primary entities within the system scope, and the inter-relationships between the different entities.
It also documents volumetric data so that organisations/ database administrators know what the initial data storage requirements will be together with the anticipated organisation growth (Song, Evans, & Park, 1995).
At the same time, an ERD is a handy data visualisation tool for organisations/ database administrators because it allows them to replace text documents and spreadsheets.
ERD is also beneficial to organisations/ database administrators when it comes to database designs because it is the first step in the process (Price, 2018). Therefore, ERD benefits organisations/ database administrators in many ways when it comes to storing and retrieving crucial data — distinguishing between entities and their inter-relationships.
ERD is also beneficial to organisations/ database administrators because of the compelling data visualisations and database designs it offers them.
References
Price, J.P. (2018). What Is Entity Relationship Diagramming and Why Is It Important? Retrieved from https://insights.diligent.com › entity-relationship-diagramming › what-is-en…
Song, I. Y., Evans, M., & Park, E. K. (1995). A comparative analysis of entity-relationship diagrams. Journal of computer and software engineering, 3(4), 427-459.