SQL Server® 2008 Administration: Real World Skills for MCITP Certification and Beyond

Building an ERD

Now that you have the basics of ERD modeling down, you can begin creating ERD models. You'll create the model shown in Figure 6.1 using Microsoft Visio in the next few pages.

If you do not have a license for Visio or another ER diagramming tool, you may want to consider using Open System Architect (OSA), which will be discussed later in the chapter.

You can approach the creation of a logical ER diagram from two angles. First, you can document the primary entities and then the supporting entities. In the example database, you would create the Books entity first and then the Authors, Publishers, Bindings, Locations, and Categories ...