By Pete Stiglich
Explains how conceptual data models (CDMs) capture core business concepts and the meaning of relationships before you get into implementation details. It stresses that relationships encode business rules (cardinality/optionality) and become a foundation for consistent definitions across projects. The piece contrasts conceptual, logical, and physical modeling, and argues that starting with a strong CDM reduces integration surprises, improves communication with stakeholders, and speeds downstream design choices, from normalization to dimensional modeling.
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Pete Stiglich: Trusted Expert in Data Architecture & Modeling
Pete has over 30 years of data architecture, data management, and analytics experience, most of that time as a consultant in industries such as government, finance, healthcare, insurance, and more. He is an industry thought leader in data architecture and data modeling and has developed and taught many courses on these topics. Pete enjoys helping clients solve complex data problems, leveraging proven approaches such as “Modeling the business before modeling the solution” which provides a benefit to clients that many IT professionals miss.
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