Book Image

Data Modeling for Azure Data Services

By : Peter ter Braake
Book Image

Data Modeling for Azure Data Services

By: Peter ter Braake

Overview of this book

Data is at the heart of all applications and forms the foundation of modern data-driven businesses. With the multitude of data-related use cases and the availability of different data services, choosing the right service and implementing the right design becomes paramount to successful implementation. Data Modeling for Azure Data Services starts with an introduction to databases, entity analysis, and normalizing data. The book then shows you how to design a NoSQL database for optimal performance and scalability and covers how to provision and implement Azure SQL DB, Azure Cosmos DB, and Azure Synapse SQL Pool. As you progress through the chapters, you'll learn about data analytics, Azure Data Lake, and Azure SQL Data Warehouse and explore dimensional modeling, data vault modeling, along with designing and implementing a Data Lake using Azure Storage. You'll also learn how to implement ETL with Azure Data Factory. By the end of this book, you'll have a solid understanding of which Azure data services are the best fit for your model and how to implement the best design for your solution.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
1
Section 1 – Operational/OLTP Databases
8
Section 2 – Analytics with a Data Lake and Data Warehouse
13
Section 3 – ETL with Azure Data Factory

Chapter 2: Entity Analysis

In Chapter 1, Introduction to Databases, you learned why we use databases. The main concepts behind databases were introduced as well. Now it is time to take a closer look at what we store in databases and how we do so.

With big, complex systems, diving into the details from the start is a recipe for disaster. You won't be able to see the wood for the trees. This is true for database design as well. In the end, you will need to consider all the nitty-gritty details. However, start with the bigger picture first. That is the main goal of this chapter, to start from a high level and use a top-down approach to learn about the system before diving into the details of the design.

The chapter will start with (a lot of) theory and will end with an example.

We will discuss the following topics in this chapter:

  • Scope
  • Understanding entity relationship diagrams
  • Entities
  • Relationships
  • Creating your first ERD
  • Context of an ERD
  • ...