According to Wikipedia,
"A data model is an abstract model that organizes elements of data and standardizes how they relate to one another and to properties of the real-world entities. For instance, a data model may specify that the data element representing a car be composed of a number of other elements which, in turn, represent the color and size of the car and define its owner."
The data modeling process can be illustrated in the following graph:
Data Modeling Process (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_model)
When applied to networking, we can apply this concept as an abstract model that ...