I generally don't make resolutions, especially at the end of a year. I'm more of a "make small changes, every day, that will make a big difference over a year" type person.  For blogs and communities, resolution making is a tradition and we all know that the holiday season is about traditions. So, dear data modelers, here are the resolutions I'd hope we'd all make for 2016. You wouldn't need to do all of them.  Just pick the ones you need to do. Make some of your own, then a plan to ma...

I was with a client for lunch one day and we asked the server "What do you have on tap?"  She was gone quite a long time, but came back and said "Beer."  It turned out she was right.  But her answer was not that helpful. One of the odd parts of every new project I have to deal with is getting everyone to understand that the question "Can you help us with a data model" results in me asking. "What do you mean by data model?" That's right, I have to ask team members what a data...

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...

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...

  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 projecs.  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   Documentation   The A...

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...

On April 28, 2015, Embarcadero announced the XE7 release of our award-winning ER/Studio data modeling and architecture suite, with new features to improve agility and collaboration in enterprise data landscapes. Let’s highlight them, and for more details and a demonstration, you can watch the on-demand webinar from April 30th. ER/Studio continues to incorporate new capabilities and features to improve the user experience, enhance the data architecture, and address emerging industry technologies...

In my previous post, we examined some of the challenges associated with developing data models for master data entities managed within an MDM environment, and I implied that achieving the holy grail of MDM, namely the (elusive, if not purely mythical) “golden record” would first require a practice for business-oriented data conceptual and logical data modeling. We tend to have a “dimensional attitude” about master data, focusing on “customer master” or “supplier master” or “product master” as i...