In Summary

The conceptual model is concerned with the real world view and understanding of data;
the logical model is a generalized formal structure in the rules of information science; the
physical model specifies how this will be executed in a particular DBMS instance.

Logical data models represent the abstract structure of some domain of information

They are often diagrammatic in nature and are most typically used in business processes that
seek to capture things of importance to an organization and how they relate to one another.

Various data modeling methodologies and products provide these layers of abstraction in
different ways. Some address only the physical implementation; some model only the logical
structure; others may provide elements of all three but not necessarily in three separate views.
In each case it helps the data modeler to understand the level of abstraction to which a
particular feature or task belongs.

The terms "conceptual". "logical", and "physical" are frequently used in data modeling to
differentiate levels of abstraction versus detail in the model. Although there is no general
agreement, let alone accepted authority, which defines these terms, nevertheless data
modelers generally understand the approximate scope of each.

Con-
ceptual E-R Model

A conceptual entity-relationship model shows how the business world sees information. It
suppresses non-critical details in order to emphasize business rules and user objects. It
typically includes only significant entities which have business meaning, along with their
relationships. Many-to-many relationships are acceptable to represent entity associations.

A conceptual model might discover that there is a need to house information about each
person in an organization. While considerable thought is given to discovering and describing
the relevant properties of each person, the designers accept implicitly that each person is
distinct and unique.

A conceptual model may include a few significant attributes to augment the definition and
visualization of entities. No effort need be made to inventory the full attribute population of
such a model. A conceptual model may have some identifying concepts or candidate keys
noted but it explicitly does not include a complete scheme of identity, since identifiers are
logical choices made from a deeper context.

Logical E-R Model

Logical data models represent the abstract structure of some domain of information
A logical data model (LDM) in systems engineering is a representation of an
organization's data, organized in terms of entities and relationships and is
independent of any particular data management technology.

They are often diagrammatic in nature and are most typically used in business processes that
seek to capture things of importance to an organization and how they relate to one another.
Once validated and approved, the logical data model can become the basis of a physical data
model and inform the design of a database.

Logical data models should be based on the structures identified in a preceding conceptual
data model, since this describes the semantics of the information context, which the logical
model should also reflect. Even so, since the logical data model anticipates implementation
on a specific computing system, the content of the logical data model is adjusted to achieve
certain efficiencies.

A logical entity-relationship model is provable in the mathematics of data science. Given the
current predominance of relational databases, logical models generally conform to relational
theory. Thus a logical model contains only fully normalized entities. Some of these may
represent logical domains rather than potential physical tables.

For a logical data model to be normalized, it must include the full population of attributes
to be implemented and those attributes must be defined in terms of their domains or logical
data types (e.g., character, number, date, picture, etc.).

Physical Database Schema

A physical data model is a single logical model instantiated in a specific database

management product (e.g., Sybase, Oracle, Informix, etc.) in a specific installation. The
physical data model specifies implementation details which may be features of a particular
product or version, as well as configuration choices for that database instance. These include
index construction, alternate key declarations, modes of referential integrity (declarative or
procedural), constraints, views, and physical storage objects such as tablespaces.