Special Concepts for Understanding Model Relationships

Below is a description of elements' concepts, procedures, special automatic processes and dependencies in Innovator for Information Architects.

Innovator for Information Architects is used for modeling, optimizing and implementing relational databases. Two model levels are used for this: the conceptual schema and the database schema.

The conceptual schema is described using an entity relationship model. This shows entities and their relationships as nodes and edges in diagrams. The aim is to create a normalized model which is free of redundancies and contains domain data. Terms and names are chosen according to the users field of work.

The database schema implements the conceptual schema as a model for storing data in the technical world. The aim is to realize and maintain the structure of the tables in a concrete relational database system. A database model is used for this. As with the ER model, tables and their referential integrity (foreign keys) are shown as nodes and edges in diagrams. The database can be described fully by the database administrators; this is done by denormalizing tables and creating elements which are typically found in databases, such as indexes, user management, data organization etc.

A mapping process makes the interaction between conceptual and database schema. A DB model is created and maintained from an ER model in a top-down process (database design). An ER model is created from a DB model in a bottom-up process (reverse engineering); this is the basis for further development of domain requirements. Dependencies are created as implementation level dependencies in the DB model in both cases; they refer to the ER model's element as a requirement level. Regardless of the initial process (top-down or bottom-up), data model maintenance is carried out at the conceptual level. Further synchronizing of the models is carried out as a top-down process.

Database schemata are realized and compared with a concrete database using JDBC or DDL scripts in SQL syntax. Both these connections are also used when getting started with reverse engineering.