PowerBuilder® 9: Internet and Distributed Application Development

Physical Data Model

This is probably the easiest model conversion to grasp. Note that I do not say “easiest to develop.” There's a definite link between the conceptual data model and the physical data model. It's a common practice to generate the physical data model from the conceptual data model using accepted industry techniques and standards. Of course, the advent of Java and XML has complicated this matter just a little, and object-relation (O-R) mapping has become more accepted as being part of the process rather than an extension of the process. In the end, though, the physical data model is a representation of the data structure that you envisage supporting the application you are going to build. Figure 6.5 shows a physical data model ...