This week is all about upgrading your Delphi database applications. Not only it is the last chance to save big on upgrading to the latest version of Delphi with 10% discount and free mobile and bonus packs, but there are also two globally available free webinars on Wednesday and Thursday that will discuss the technical details of Migrating Your Database Applications to FireDAC and InterBase (youtube recording) RAD Server Scalable Cloud Deployment There are many dimensions to the process o...

Just in case you've been head-down into your data models for too long, in the US the Friday after Thanksgiving is called Black Friday. Traditionally this is a day for massive sales and steep discounts to ensure that Americans start their holiday shopping with gusto.  Over the years, Black Friday has been creeping earlier and earlier in the week and now starts on Thursday for some of the most desperate shoppers. These originally were brick and mortar store sales, but these days Black Friday ...

Steve Hoberman is a presenter, consultant, and the author of seven books on data modeling, including the bestseller Data Modeling Made Simple. One of Steve's frequent data modeling consulting assignments is to review data models using his Data Model Scorecard® technique. Steve has just published the Data Model Scorecard book, which helps data professionals apply a scoring standard against their data models in order to assess their quality. This scoring tool contains ten categories aimed at impr...

ER/Studio Enterprise Team edition provides the fastest, easiest, and most collaborative way for data management professionals to build and maintain enterprise-scale data models and metadata repositories. Built-in facilities automate routine modeling tasks so users can analyze and optimize database and data warehouse designs faster than ever. Model change management provides the ability to create and track tasks associated with data models in order to enable data architects to ensure their model...

The Elephant “We must understand the data and therefore continue to develop data models, even in this 'Big Data' era." exclaimed the data warehouse lead. "You traditional guys! We are in a new age and we have new technologies and tools that allow us to immediately store tremendous amounts of data and use it, without the ridiculous long and expensive cycles of data modeling and design. Wake up and start living in our new world!" said the data scientist. "If you use the data without first unders...

Last month I developed a whitepaper and a webinar on data modeling in an Agile environment.  These works focused on what we as data modelers can do to ensure that data models (and therefore data modelers) continue to be valued on IT projects.  This blog series touches on the key takeaways from these works.   Webinar: http://forms.embarcadero.com/Agile-or-Fragile Whitepaper: http://forms.embarcadero.com/Agile-or-Fragile-WP   Sprints   In the SCRUM methodo...

This is an excerpt from the IDC Technology Spotlight June 2015 report, Enabling Enterprise Agility Through Model-Driven Data Design. This paper examines the growing importance of model-driven processes for database design and management. You can download the entire report here.

In the webinar, Demystifying Macros with ER/Studio, Embarcadero Software Consultant Stanley Chan demonstrated how macros work in ER/Studio. He showed how to use the built-in macros and also shared some custom macros during the session. If you missed the live presentation, you can watch it on demand. There were a lot of great questions during the session, some of which Stan didn’t have time to answer live. So he has provided responses to several of those for this blog. Q: In the color-coding de...

At EDW this year Ron Huizenga, Product Manager for ER/Studio, and I led a SIG discussion about working on agile projects...as a data modeler. As usual, this resulted in a lot of frustration being voiced from data modelers about: Not being wanted on the voyage Being treated like obstacles to getting stuff done Being confused by terminology and expectations that differ from 1980s approach to data modeling Being frustrated because perfectly good data models are ignore Being frustrated becaus...

In my last post, I suggested that the conventional “facet” approach to designing master data models (in which each master domain is modeled, designed, and implemented in isolation from the others in the enterprise) creates gaps in the ability to effectively build applications that facilitate successful execution of end-to-end business processes. For example, the perception (and consequently the definition) of the role of a “customer” changes between the marketing, sales, finance, fulfillment, an...