Please see below the discussion in response to the question and respond as a peer using 150 or more words.
Original Question:
(Explain why the entity relationship (ER) model is useful. How has it helped to produce a more structured relational database design environment?)
Peer Response:
Based on the background readings, Entity Relationship (ER) Diagrams is a graphical representation, a tool used to describe the data requirements and assumptions in the system from a top-down perspective (Wang, 2017). It is a high-level logical and structural model that defines the relationship among different entities of a Database Management System (DBMS).
So, why is it so important to utilize ER models when designing a DBMS? As you may know, many mistakes occurred during a database design. Creating a great data modeling can be challenging and overwhelming when you have too many data to deal with. Database designers can easily fall behind their design timeline when they cannot identify clearly all the data elements necessary to design efficiently the database.
Therefore, ER Diagrams (ERD) provide a clear representation of all the different entities and relations to design the DBMS. ERD helps the database administrator (DBA) to identify all the entities and attributes necessary to build their database by defining the appropriate and logical correlation between those entities for an efficient DBMS.
ERD should be the first major step of a database design as it provide the DBA a graphic representation of data needed to build the database, before it gets converted into a set of tables at relational database.
Thank you!
