Conceptual Database Design: An Entity-Relationship Approach

492 Pages·20.837 MB·English

by  Carol Batini, Stefano Ceri, Shamkant B. Navathe

Conceptual
Database
Design
AN ETY-REATINSI APPROACH
BATINI
CERI
N AXVJAT H E
CONCEPTUAL
DATABASE
DESIGN
An Entity-Relationship Approach
F_
Selected Titles from
The Benjamin/Cummings Series in Computer Science
G. S. Almasi, T. J. Watson, and A. Gottlieb
Highly Parallel Computing, Second Edition (1992)
G. Andrews
Concurrent Programming: Principles and Practice (1991)
G. Andrews and R. A. Olsson
Concurrent Programming with SR (1992)
P. Atzeni, V. De Antonellis, and C. Batini
Relational Database Theory: A Comprehensive Introduction (1992)
G. Booch
Object-Oriented Design with Applications (1991)
R. Elmasri and S. B. Navathe
Fundamentals of Database Systems, Second Edition (1992)
L. Kerschberg, Editor
Expert Database Systems: Proceedings from the First International Workshop (1986)
L. Kerschberg, Editor
Expert Database Systems: Proceedings from the First International Conference (1988)
L. Kerschberg, Editor
Expert Database Systems: Proceedings from the Second International Workshop (1989)
F. R. McFadden and J. A. Hoffer
Database Management, Third Edition (1991)
w
CONCEPTUAL
DATABASE
DESIGN
An Entity-Relationship Approach
CARLO BATINI
University di Roma "La Sapienza"
STEFANO CERI
Politecnico di Milano
SHAMKANT B. NAVATHE
Georgia Institute of Technology
The Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company, Inc.
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Technical artist: Merry Finley
Cover designer: Gary Head
Production management: The Cowans
Composition: The Cowans
Copyright © 1992 by Carlo Batini, Stefano Ceri, and Shamkant B. Navathe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Batini, Carlo.
Conceptual database design: an entity-relationship approach/
Carlo Batini, Stefano Ceri, Shamkant B. Navathe.
496 p. cm.
Includes index.
1. Data base design. I. Ceri, Stefano, II. Navathe,
Shamkant III. Title.
QA76.9.D26B38 199 005.74--dc2O 91-15635
ISBN 0-8053-0244-1
345678910-DO-95 94
The Benjamin/Cummings Publishing Company, Inc.
390 Bridge Parkway
Redwood City, California 94065
To my parents: Curzio, who died in 1975, and Laura, who died fifteen years later
C. B.
To my dear parents: Luciana Arcidiacono and Mauro Ceri
S.C.
To my parents: Blialchandra and Vijaya Navathe,
for their encouragement and support
S. B. N.
PREFACE
Background
Database design is the process of determining the organization of a database, including its
structure, contents, and the applications to be run. For a long time, database design was
considered a task for experts, and was regarded as more of an art than a science. However,
much progress has been made in database design, and it is now considered a stable
discipline, with its own methods and techniques. Due to the spread of databases in
industry and government spanning commercial and a variety of scientific and technical
applications, database design is playing a central role in the information resource manage-
ment of most organizations. Database design has also become a part of the general
background of computer scientists, much like the ability of building algorithms using a
conventional programming language.
Database design is normally done in three phases. The first phase, called conceptual
design, produces a high-level, abstract representation of reality. The second phase, called
logical design, translates this representation into specifications that can be implemented on
and processed by a computer system. The third phase, called physical design, determines the
physical storage structures and access methods required for efficient access to the contents
of a database from secondary storage devices.
This book deals with the first two phases of database design, with a strong focus on
the issues related to the user and the application rather than the system and a specific
hardware/software environment. The conceptual and logical design phases can be per-
formed independently of the choice of a particular database management system (DBMS).
Therefore, it is assumed in the text that the knowledge of general database concepts and/
or experience with DBMSs constitutes a common background for the reader.
We believe that a systematic and thorough execution of these early phases of design
pays off immensely in the long term. In fact, many organizations are discovering the need
to do conceptual and logical design at the same time as they move over to the relational
and object-oriented database technology.
vii
viii PREFACE
In this book, we use Chen's Entity-Relationship (ER) model with some enhancements
needed for a better conceptual representation. This model is extensively used in many
design methodologies, has an effective graphic representation, and is the de facto standard
of most automatic tools for supporting database design. Though this book focuses on
conceptual database design, we present a joint methodology for conceptual database
design and functional analysis. The proposed mixed approach is based on well-known
techniques that are common to both approaches.
Purpose of This Book
The primary goals of this book are the following:
"* To provide a thorough and systematic treatment of conceptual and logical design.
"* To base this treatment on the well-accepted Entity-Relationship model.
"* To advocate that conceptual design and functional analysis be conducted to-
gether.
"* To address completely the translation of the conceptual design in the Entity-
Relationship model into the three popular data models: relational, network, and
hierarchical. We also address the problem of reverse engineering from these three
models into the ER model.
"*T o illustrate the concepts via a realistic, large case study.
"*T o provide a survey of the state of the art of design tools.
"* To provide enough pedagogical support for students of this subject in terms of
exercises and bibliographic notes on pertinent literature.
Audience
The main activity of conceptual design is to understand and model reality; this task is
difficult and is usually performed only by experts. Once it is captured, the logical design
task is fairly straight forward. The main objective of this book is to discuss conceptual
design not only for the benefit of the experts, but to introduce it to a much broader
audience:
1. Students, who require a precise, rigorous treatment of conceptual and logical
database design to complement a first course on database models and systems.
2. Practitioners (database administrators, analysts, consultants, and database pro-
grammers), who will use this material to formalize and solve database design
problems that are typically ill-defined. We believe that the methodology presented
in this book can be adapted to apply to most design situations and hence will help
designers solve their design problems in a systematic way.
PREFACE ix
3. Users of databases, who need a foundation of knowledge to communicate with the
database administration staff in order to specify their needs; they will also be able
to monitor and control the design process and to understand the meaning and the
structure of the database stored in their information system.
This book is self-contained: all concepts are defined before their use. However, the
book does not include a description of database systems features or of languages that can
be used for programming database systems. Hence, it assumes as a prerequisite some
knowledge about database systems, typically obtained from a first course on databases, or
from exposure to the concrete use of databases. We recommend the use of Fundamentals
of Database Systems by Elmasri and Navathe (Benjamin/Cummings, 1989) as a compre-
hensive source for reference material. Chapters 12, 13, and 14 provide summary intro-
ductions to the relational, network, and hierarchical data models, respectively.
Outline of the Book
The book is divided into three parts, preceded by an introductory chapter. The last part
concludes with a guest chapter by David Reiner on design tools.
Part 1 follows a data-driven approach and treats conceptual database design as
independent of application design.
The first chapter illustrates the role of database design within the information systems
life cycle and the distinction between data- and function-driven approaches to informa-
tion systems design. Chapter 2 presents data modeling concepts and specifically the ER
model, so that after reading it the reader is able to understand ER schemas. Chapter 3
presents design primitives and strategies for designing ER schemas; at the end of this
chapter, the reader should be able to build small ER schemas.
Chapter 4 is divided into three sections, each one illustrating specific approaches to
conceptual design based on different types of initial requirements: textual descriptions,
forms, and COBOL record formats. Each section can be read independently. Chapter 5
describes how different schemas should be integrated to generate a unique global schema.
Chapter 6 shows how a conceptual schema should be restructured in order to improve its
qualities (including completeness, minimality, expressiveness, readability, and normal-
ization). Chapter 7 describes how conceptual design should be documented by collecting
several design descriptions, and how such documentation can be used for database
maintenance and for data dictionary integration.
Part 2 follows a joint data- and function-driven approach and integrates conceptual
modeling with functional analysis. Chapter 8 deals with functional analysis by introducing
the dataflow model and by showing design primitives and strategies. Chapter 9 illustrates
the joint data- and function-driven approach to conceptual design of data and functions; this
method produces a high-level navigational specification of databaseo perations that are useful
for the subsequent logical and physical database design.
Chapter 10 presents a large case study. We present a fairly realistic example of a bus
company that offers a variety of tours. We have tried to address the aspects of the bus
company operations that are relevant to the design of the database.
X PREFACE
Part 3 of the book addresses logical design, which is the process of converting the
conceptual design into an implementable database structure in some specific database
management system. We first address model-independent design; that is, we consider
simplifying transformations on the conceptual schema without any regard to the final
target data model. Then we consider mapping the conceptual schema into each of the
three prominent data models: relational, network, and hierarchical.
Chapter 11 deals with model-independent logical design using the Entity-Relationship
model, and describes the initial transformations of the conceptual schema into a simpli-
fied, intermediate, conceptual-to-logical schema. The next three chapters use this simplified
schema as a starting point for subsequent transformations into the commercially imple-
mented dominant families of DBMSs.
Chapters 12 through 14 transform a conceptual schema in the ER model into a re-
lational schema, a network (DBTG or CODASYL) schema, and a hierarchical schema re-
spectively. In these three chapters we have summarized the essential features, constraints,
and languages associated with these models. In each of the above chapters, two additional
issues are addressed. First, we consider the translation of operations on the conceptual
schema into appropriate data-manipulation languages for the target data models (relational,
network, or hierarchical). These are illustrated through example operations on the case-
study database. Second, the problem of reverse engineering is addressed for each model, so
that existing database schemas in the respective models may be abstracted or reverse
engineered into a conceptual schema.
Chapter 15 on database design tools is contributed by David Reiner. It first discusses
the general issues, including the architecture and desirable features of design tools, and
then describes some of the tools for computer-assisted database design currently available
as research prototypes or on the commercial market.
The layout of the book, shown in the accompanying chart, indicates precedences
among chapters and suggests several reading sequences.
Acknowledgments
Our approach to database design has been strongly influenced by the Dataid Project,
developed in Italy between 1980 and 1985, and sponsored by the National Research
Council. We thank our colleagues who actively participated in the project, particularly
Antonio Albano, Valeria de Antonellis, and Antonio di Leva.
Each of the three authors has separately conducted research in database design,
together with other colleagues. In particular, Carlo Batini wishes to acknowledge Maurizio
Lenzerini, Giuseppe Di Battista, and Giuseppe Santucci.
Stefano Ceri wishes to acknowledge the cooperation of Giampio Bracchi, Giuseppe
Pelagatti, Barbara Pernici, Paola Mostacci, and Federico Barbic during the years of activity
of the Dataid Project, sponsored by the National Research Council and by a joint grant
with the National Science Foundation. Many students of the Politecnico di Milano have
conducted research in database design with him as part of their theses; he would like to