S4: Data Modeling for NoSQL and SQL

The venerable entity-relationship (E-R) modeling technique is very mature for SQL databases, but doesn't translate well to many of the NOSQL databases. This interactive workshop will introduce the Concept and Object Modeling Notation (COMN, pronounced "common"), which can represent the new structures that NOSQL DBMSs support, while still supporting traditional SQL DBMSs. It also has more expressive power for modeling the real-world entities that databases are about.

Topics to be covered include:

Modeling notation for containment and multi-valued attributes
How to model schema-less databases
How to model the problem space and the solution space, and the mapping between them

Ted Hills has been active in the Information Technology industry since 1975, moving gradually up through device drivers and operating systems to communications software, applications, and finally information architecture. His employers have included AT&T Bell Laboratories, Dow Jones and Bloomberg. At LexisNexis, Ted co-leads the work of establishing enterprise data architecture standards and governance processes, working with data models and business and data definitions for both structured and unstructured data. Prior to joining LexisNexis, Ted was the Enterprise Information Architecture Executive for Bank of America, where he led several enterprise reference data and data warehouse projects. Ted's work spans the spectrum from conceptual design to database and software implementation. Ted has always been an active researcher, with interests in software and data integration, data modeling notations, and improving the expressivity of languages while keeping them type-safe.