Data modeling is the act of exploring data-oriented structures. Like other modeling artifacts data models can be used for a variety of purposes, from high-level conceptual models to physical data models. From the point of view of an object-oriented developer, data modeling is conceptually similar to class modeling. With data modeling you identify entity types whereas with class modeling you identify classes. Data attributes are assigned to entity types just as you would assign attributes and operations to classes.
Examples for data modeling include:
• Entity-Relationship diagrams
• Entity-Definition reports
• Entity and attributes report
• Table definition report
• Relationships, inheritance, composition and aggregation.