Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD)
Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD)
Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD)
(ERD)
Objectives
• Define terms related to entity relationship
modeling, including entity, entity instance,
attribute, relationship and cardinality, and
primary key.
• Describe the entity modeling process.
• Discuss how to draw an entity relationship
diagram.
• Describe how to recognize entities,
attributes, relationships, and cardinalities.
Database Model
A database can be modeled as:
– a collection of entities,
– relationship among entities.
Database systems are often modeled using
an Entity Relationship (ER) diagram as the
"blueprint" from which the actual data is
stored — the output of the design phase.
Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD)
• ER model allows us to sketch database designs
STUDENT
Each school enrolls Each student attends
students school
SCHOOL
General Steps to create an ERD
• Identify the entity
• Identify the entity's attributes
• Identify the Primary Keys
• Identify the relation between entities
• Identify the Cardinality constraint
• Draw the ERD
• Check the ERD
Steps in building an ERD
Developing an ERD
The process has ten steps:
1. Identify Entities
2. Find Relationships
3. Draw Rough ERD
4. Fill in Cardinality
5. Define Primary Keys
6. Draw Key-Based ERD
7. Identify Attributes
8. Map Attributes
9. Draw fully attributed ERD
10. Check Results
A Simple Example
A company has several departments. Each
department has a supervisor and at least one
employee. Employees must be assigned to at
least one, but possibly more departments. At
least one employee is assigned to a project,
but an employee may be on vacation and not
assigned to any projects. The important data
fields are the names of the departments,
projects, supervisors and employees, as well
as the supervisor and employee number and a
unique project number.
Identify entities
• One approach to this is to work through the
information and highlight those words which you think
correspond to entities.
• A company has several departments. Each
department has a supervisor and at least one
employee. Employees must be assigned to at least
one, but possibly more departments. At least one
employee is assigned to a project, but an employee
may be on vacation and not assigned to any projects.
The important data fields are the names of the
departments, projects, supervisors and employees, as
well as the supervisor and employee number and a
unique project number.