Getting Started with InfoSphere Data Architect

Chapter 3 – Logical Data Modeling 51
3.2 Creating a logical data model
One of the most difficult problems you will encounter as you create a logical data model for
a project is to come to agreement on what business process should be modeled. You
should work with your client to determine the needs of the business that the project will
satisfy. To create a logical data model of a business process, you should use the following
process:
1. Analyze the various needs of the business. Start with the most important business
process. Document the analysis, so that you and other data modelers can
understand the goals and future plans of the project.
2. Work with the project owners to determine what data they want to identify and why
the data is important. You can use this to identify preliminary data objects that are
common across several processes, data sources, or the various grains of each
data object.
3. Meet with project owners to resolve ambiguous requirements.
4. Make a preliminary plan to meet the requirements. Create a conceptual model,
drafting the initial design of the logical data model. You will use this plan to draft
your data model.
3.2.1 Creating a logical data model with the workbench
You meet with business process owners for the university. They ask you to help them
create a student information management system that collects student information. After
further meetings, you decide to start small. You will create a logical data model that tracks
basic student information, such as student ID number, grades, and classes.
To learn how to create a logical data model with the workbench, you will create a small
logical data model, named STUDENT_INFO_SYSTEM.
3.2.1.1 Creating a new data design project to store your models
Before you can create a logical data model, you need to create a new data design project,
where your files are stored. Use this data design project to store all of the data models for
this project. You can have multiple data design projects within a workspace, and each data
design project can contain multiple data models.
To create a new data design project:
Note:
1. Click on File -> New -> Data Design Project. The New Data Design Project window
opens.
Since your workspace is more than likely empty, you can also click the Click to create a
new data design project link. However, this link is not available once you create your first
data design project.