Relationship Data Model

The relationship Data Model is important for developers to store data on databases. In this blog, we will see a brief history, its significance and real-life examples of relational data models.

What is the Relationship Data Model?

The relationship Data Model conveys that it can be applied to data with relationships and represents the relationship between data entities.

In the above example we can see that we have two tables one is for employees and the other is for departments in the company. Even if the data is present in two separate tables they are not totally independent.

The relationship between the two tables is every employee in the organization must be part of at least one department and every department must have at least one employee.

In the above example, the data is represented as a table with rows and columns. Each table stores data of one entity and has there exists some relationship between the data in the two tables. This is what is called the relational data model. It is important to note that in some places tables are often referred to as relations.

The relationship data model focuses on two things:

1. Tables

2. Relationships

The relationship data model focuses on the structure and organization of tables and the relationships between them.

In the above example, Each entity has its own table. The entity employee has the employee table which stores some data about the employees. In the other table, we have data about another entity which is the department.

Both the employee table and the department table are interconnected with the department number. The department number is the relationship between the employee table and the department table.

History:

The relationship data model was introduced by Edgar F. Codd in 1969 and is now the most widely used data model in modern databases.