IT: Data Models (Definitions)

"A system data model is a collection of the information being addressed by a specific system or function such as a billing system, data warehouse, or data mart. The system model is an electronic representation of the information needed by that system. It is independent of any specific technology or DBMS environment." (Claudia Imhoff et al, "Mastering Data Warehouse Design", 2003)

"The business data model, sometimes known as the logical data model, describes the major things ('entities') of interest to the company and the relationships between pairs of these entities. It is an abstraction or representation of the data in a given business environment, and it provides the benefits cited for any model. It helps people envision how the information in the business relates to other information in the business ('how the parts fit together')." (Claudia Imhoff et al, "Mastering Data Warehouse Design", 2003)

"The technology data model is a collection of the specific information being addressed by a particular system and implemented on a specific platform." (Claudia Imhoff et al, "Mastering Data Warehouse Design", 2003)

[enterprise data model:] "A high-level, enterprise-wide framework that describes the subject areas, sources, business dimensions, business rules, and semantics of an enterprise." (Sharon Allen & Evan Terry, "Beginning Relational Data Modeling 2nd Ed.", 2005)

[canonical data model:] "The definition of a standard organization view of a particular information subject. To be practical, canonical data models include a mapping back to each application view of the same subject." (David Lyle & John G Schmidt, "Lean Integration", 2010)

[hierarchical data model:] "A data model that represents data in a tree-like structure of only one-to-many relationships, where each entity may have a ‘many’ side when related to a parent, and a ‘one’ side when related to a child." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

[Enterprise Data Model (EDM):] "A conceptual data model or logical data model providing a common consistent view of shared data across the enterprise, however that is defined, at a point in time. It is common to use the term to mean a high-level, simplified data model, but that is a question of abstraction for presentation." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

[network data model:] "A representation of objects and their participation in one or more owner-member sets. In such a model, a both owners and members may participate in multiple sets, affecting a network of objects and relationships." (DAMA International, "The DAMA Dictionary of Data Management", 2011)

[enterprise data model:] "A single data model that comprehensively describes the data needs of the entire organization." (Craig S Mullins, "Database Administration", 2012)

[generic data model:] "A data model of an industry, rather than of a specific company; a generic data model can be used as a template that can be customized for a given company within the industry that has been modeled." (Daniel Linstedt & W H Inmon, "Data Architecture: A Primer for the Data Scientist", 2014)

[corporate data model:] "A data model at the corporate level for the core business objects and their relationship with each other, which is based on the core business object model." (Boris Otto & Hubert Österle, "Corporate Data Quality", 2015)

[Enterprise data model:] "The enterprise data model in many literatures and viewpoints is considered to be a single, standalone unified artifact that describes all data entities and data attributes and their relationships across the enterprise. In most cases this model is combined with the ambition to consolidate all data in an enterprise data warehouse (EDW)." (Piethein Strengholt, "Data Management at Scale", 2020)