Excerpt
For database professionals, this book provides a practical guide to the use of the Unified Modeling Language (UML) for database design. It is intended for those who have to make things happen in the real world; those who have to deliver real systems to meet real business needs. In short, this book is designed for those pragmatic, working database designers who need to get things done.
UML for Database Design addresses the questions most frequently asked of us by database professionals from all over the globe:
- How can I use UML for database design in the real world?
- How can I fit the UML into my current process?
- How should the database design team adopt this approach?
- How can database and application teams work together using the UML?
The Approach
We have endeavored to ensure that this book didn't get lost in theory, buried in formalism, or trivialized by unrealistic, contrived examples. Thus, at times we may run contrary to the purists. That's OK. The approach we take is to introduce the use of UML for database design in a stepwise fashion, for each phase of the system development life cycle. We move from business modeling at the beginning of the life cycle to database design at the end. We show how the UML applies to the process and the value it provides to the database designer in each phase. A robust, realistic case study (described in Chapter 2) helps demonstrate how to use the UML and how to handle challenges that you may encounter during your real-world projects.
Chapter Summaries
Chapter 1--Introduction. This chapter indicates who should read this book and why. It describes the basic structure of subsequent chapters and the overall flow of the book.
Chapter 2--Database Design from Requirements to Implementation.This chapter discusses database modeling versus database design, addresses data modeling as it exists today, describes how using the UML differs from traditional techniques, and introduces the case study used throughout the remainder of the book.
Chapter 3--Business Modeling for Database Design. This chapter introduces business modeling and how it, and the UML, can be used for database design. Here is where the conceptual model is established.
Chapter 4--Requirements Definition.This chapter shows how all the artifacts provided by the previous business modeling are used to establish the system requirements.
Chapter 5--Analysis and Preliminary Design.This chapter moves from the realm of business requirements into the logical design of the system and its database.
Chapter 6--Preparing for Transformation to the Database Design Model. This chapter transitions from the logical analysis model to the database design model. This chapter also addresses the issues that arise during the mapping of object models to data models.
Chapter 7--Database Design Models--the UML Profile for Database Design.This chapter introduces the UML Profile for Database Design developed by Rational Software Corporation.
Chapter 8--Implementing the Physical Aspects of the Database.This chapter focuses on the physical component of database design.
Chapter 9--Summary of Using the UML for Database Design.This chapter performs a "postmortem" on how the UML was used in the case study project.
Appendix A--UML Models for EAB Healthcare, Inc.This appendix contains the UML models from the case study project.
Appendix B--Use Case Descriptions.This appendix contains the use case descriptions from the case study project.
Contacts
We would appreciate your feedback on this book. If you have questions or comments, please feel free to contact us by email at [email protected], or visit our website http://www.UMLforDatabaseDesign.com.
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