Too Many Meanings, Not Enough Words
How many words are there in the English language? The Oxford Dictionaries answers this question with a very strong “it…
COMN
What’s the Difference between JSON and XML?
There are two languages commonly used to express data, but they are very different, and are better and worse for…
Three Levels of Models Versus Business
Three Levels of Model Abstraction Traditional entity-relationship (E-R) modeling recognizes three different levels of abstraction at which models are developed:…
Data Architecture COMN Sense: Data Types and Roles
One of the most illuminating lessons I’ve learned about data modeling came from Len Silverston’s universal data models, where he…
Data Architecture COMN Sense: Big Knowledge?
We are coming to grips with big data through analytical techniques that enable us to reduce it to useful insights…
Data Architecture COMN Sense – Is the Data Warehouse Dead?
It was a pleasure to attend a data warehousing event in Austin, Texas in early December to take a few…
Data Architecture COMN Sense: What are Data and Information?
Occasionally I encounter discussions on various social media sites arguing passionately about the definitions of the terms “data” and “information.”…
Data Architecture COMN Sense – The Missing Logical Layer in Data Management
Around 2009 someone used the term “NoSQL” to describe an emerging class of database management systems (DBMSs) that, as the…
Data Architecture COMN Sense: Relationships in Structured Data
In my blog last month, we looked at five aspects of relationship types, relationships in graphs, and how relationships are…
Data Architecture COMN Sense: Relationships and Semantics
Introduction Relationships are fundamental to contextual modeling, data modeling, and semantics. It’s important to understand them deeply. This blog will…