Here data design is described at both the architectural and component levels. At the architecture level, data design is the process of creating a model of the information represented at a high level of abstraction (using the customer’s view of data)
Data Design at the Architectural Level
- The challenge is extract useful information from the data environment, particularly when the information desired is cross-functional.
- To solve this challenge, the business IT community has developed data mining techniques, also called knowledge discovery in databases (KDD), that navigate through existing databases in an attempt to extract appropriate business-level information
- However, the existence of multiple databases, their different structures, and the degree of detail contained with the databases, and many other factors make data mining difficult within an existing database environment
- An alternative solution, called a data warehouse, adds on additional layer to the data architecture
- A data warehouse is a separate data environment that is not directly integrated with day-to-day applications that encompasses all data used by a businessÂ
Data Design at the Component Level
At the component level, data design focuses on specific data structures required to realize the data objects to be manipulated by a component.
- Refine data objects and develop a set of data abstractions
- Implement data object attributes as one or more data structures
- Review data structures to ensure that appropriate relationships have been established Set of principles for data specification:
- The systematic analysis principles applied to function and behavior should also be applied to data
- All data structures and the operations to be performed on each should be identified
- A data dictionary should be established and used to define both data and program design
- Low level data design decisions should be deferred until late in the design process
- The representation of data structure should be known only to those modules that must make direct use of the data contained within the structure
- A library of useful data structures and the operations that may be applied to them should be developed
- A software design and programming language should support the specification and realization of abstract data types