Customer Reviews

The Data Model Resource Book, Vol. 2: A Library of Data Models for Specific Industries

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

First the content: Contains everything that is not taught in graduate school (been there), and everything that a data modeller needs know about data modelling.
Next the format: Consumerism at its worse! An incomplete template here, missing template there-a tease to lay out $400 for a complete set of templates (on top of the $100 plus for both volumes already laid out).
The conclusion: invest in volume 1 and familiarize yourself with the valuable concepts layed out there-save your money and TIME with volume 2.

What a [scheme]. I thought I was purchasing some templates - generic data models oriented for specific industries. This book is a teaser for the author's electronic products, which contain the real templates. This book has just enough information to lead you to believe the electronic product is plausable, but not enough to really use the data models discussed(without the expensive downloads). I expected a bunch of entities with the PK and FK attributes ready for customizing with my company specific attributes... NOT.

Yes, it is. Because the other chapters have all sorts of useful content as well. This book covers Manufacturing, Telecommunications, Health Care, Insurance, Financial Services, Professional Services, Travel, and e-Commerce. Most companies, even if they aren't in those sectors, use the services of companies that are (or may do a little bit of them - offer insurance on their products, for example), and if you need to include these areas in your model, in more detail than was covered in volume 1 (the core Universal Data Model book), then this is the place to start. If you are in one of these areas, then the specific chapter has a lot of useful stuff (I have worked in Travel, Telecommunications and Professional Services), but it is well worth checking out the other models for ideas that can be re-used in your area.

This book provides an extremely comprehensive and useful set of industry data models. They have been a tremendous value to us by allowing us to reference best-practice designs on our projects as well as being able to save a great deal of time by not having to re-invent the wheel for standard data modeling structures. The models are extremely well thought out and offer insight into both effective ways of modeling as well as pitfalls to be careful of. The author shows extensive knowledge and expertise in the various industries that are provided. We have used many of the models from the health care, insurance, professional services and e-commerce models to give us a kick-start on data modeling projects as well as to double check our designs and make sure we didn't overlook anything important and we did end up modifying and improving many of our data models based upon ideas from this book.

The books offers an optional electronic download of the SQL for each industry for $400 but this is not at all necessary to benefit from the templates offered in the book because the book provides detailed data model constructs showing everything necessary to implement the models including primary and foreign key structures, attributes, relationship and attribute optionality, cardinalities of relationships, full explanations of the rationale behind each model, and even data examples for most of the models and attributes. We licensed the electronic download also and it saved us some time instead of having to manually enter the models from the book, however, the book without the electronic downloads is complete in and of itself, and it is amazing that one can buy an extensive library of industry data models for the cost of this book!

The comprehensive industry data models and data warehouse designs in this book have been invaluable to our organization. These models are extremely well thought out and complete with Primary Keys, Foreign Keys and rational behind the data modeling choices. This book helped us deliver much higher quality solutions and saved us a tremendous amount of time. This book is worth many times its cost and we highly recommend it to any data modeler. We believe its an essential part of any data modelers toolkit.

My copy of both volume 1 and volume 2 have been referenced so many times that they are tattered and worn, but such a valuable resource on all my projects. Whenever I contemplate a design, I first look at this book and, more often than not, I get ideas and best practices on ways to model the construct. I have successfully re-used designs from both volume 1 and 2 and have applied models from both of these books towards the modeling of many industries including distribution, manufacturing, telecommunications, health care, financial services and professional services.

I have found that the models provided are very relevant, re-usable, and of very high quality. They also provide all the details necessary to create physical database designs. They include entities, keys (primary and foreign), relationships (named), attributes, and the appendices include a complete listing and cross referencing of the entities and attributes, which entities are used in which diagrams (in volume 2), and domains that specify the data type and suggested lengths for each attribute. The book provides clear explanations as to why the models are modeled a certain way as well as includes data examples showing the specific instances of data that could be stored in these models.

The data models offered are at what I would consider a mid level of abstraction. Therefore, they offer a good level of flexibility without being overly abstract. The author will use very useful abstractions such as a "party", "product", "agreement" and "work effort" (with many specific subtypes of these entities as they apply to the various industries) but he does not go overboard by including overly generic concepts like "item" "activity", or "thing" entities. What I really like is that the author will often show multiple ways of modeling the same construct and show the pros and cons of the different ways to model a construct. Sometimes specific data modeling constructs are shown and sometimes more abstract entity models are shown.

Both the volume 1 common models and volume 2 industry models have not only saved me time by being able to re-use the constructs, but they have offered some perspectives that did not occur to me and have literally been a life saver to me on many a project. I could not ask for a better reference on data modeling templates and re-usable data modeling examples!

This is an excellent companion to Volume 1 and well worth the cost for not only the book, but also the industry specific CDs. There is a separate CD for each industry specific data model, however it wouldn't take long for a person to buy just the book and end up spending more in man-hours trying to create the data model from the book, which isn't a very good use of your time. Buy the CD also.

My organization found this book a tremendous help on one of our projects. The time saved on just one project will more than pay for the book and CD.

This is not a how-to for data modeling, however I believe it should be purchased along with your how-to book if you are interested in learning

I know there are other universal data models available. However the others I've seen are either very simple, don't have a CD, and don't have near the content as these models, or they are unbelievably expensive.

I purchased this book along with Volumes 1 and 3 and they've been great. Volume 2 I purchased for the Kindle and Volumes 1 and 3 in printed form. The Kindle version (as of 9/2010) was a mistake for the following reasons:

(Running Kindle for PC on Windows 2010)

1) Table of Contents: The links don't work correctly. So effectively, you are buying a book with no table of contents. Worse, since they take you to the wrong place, but the Kindle does't display where you are at by chapter or heading, its very confusing. Click on the TOC link for "Orders" for the professional services chapter, and you will end up in the manufacturing chapter, but you don't know it.

2) Appendix Tables: These are rotated in the book, but there is no way to rotate the Kindle for PC, so they are difficult to read.

3) Bookmarks: The ones I've created are hard to read (can't assign names) and jump to the previous page.

So the Kindle version as a Reference Book is a pain.

But do buy the printed version, and when they fix the kindle version, it should be fine too.

The audience for this book is geared towards readers who would very much like to have a broad view of data models in the different industry verticals - e.g. Finance, Telcos etc

Data Models are subjective and it does not hurt to look at different sources for reference.

I would recommend this book to Data Warehousing consultants already familiar with the methodology and are looking for comparisons. It is not for the casual reader who would like a quick overview of Data Modeling.

As others have stated, the CD included with the book is (effectively) only an advertisement for the models for sale on the web site. Frankly, I find this offensive, since books that have CDs are generally much more expensive because (normally) the CD has additional useful content, CDs cost money to make, etc. I doubt that I would buy another of Mr. Silverston's books after having this disappointing experience. The models themselves seem well thought-out and useful, but if you're looking for something that will save you time and money, you'd be better off purchasing a model from one of the many industry-specific standards organizations (e.g. ACORD). Those models will be much more detailed and recognizable between multiple organizations.