Brian Walker has written a series of articles at SearchSQLServer about nightmare database designs he's seen.  Some of these observations sound familiar, I'm sad to report.

I had the chance to examine three business databases in five weeks and I'm still staggered by what I found. These are SQL Server databases serving as critical business foundations for companies generating millions of dollars in revenue per year. Every day, hundreds of employees are counting on these databases to deliver accuracy, stability and performance. Personally, I would not trust these databases to store a simple catalog of the 2,600 songs on my iPod.

The databases support their respective businesses, but they are plagued by performance problems. There are many issues within the databases, but the businesses are simply working around the issues with server hardware and production DBAs. It would be very difficult to fix the issues because several applications have been coded to accommodate the database design flaws. With extra expenses and lost productivity, business is hurting. The database design is also making SQL Server look weak.

Evil in retrospect

So, what's wrong with the business databases I examined? Everything. Seriously. They are poorly normalized. Some of the tables have no primary key constraints. Many of the relationships between tables are not enforced with foreign key constraints. The use of indexing is haphazard. Essential business logic is hidden in massive triggers. Many of the column data types are inappropriate. How about consistency? Well, there's more consistency in style among first round contestants on "American Idol."

Check out the rest of the article at:

SQL Server database design disasters: What not to do

I was shocked to read that Michael Hammer, co-author of Reengineering the Corporation, passed away recently.

BOSTON, MA, September 4 – Dr. Michael Hammer, one of the world’s leading business thinkers, died early this morning at a Boston hospital after collapsing from apparent cranial bleeding Friday, August 22. He was 60 years old.

“We are all shocked and deeply saddened by Michael’s premature passing. He was a true business visionary and one of the most provocative and passionate teachers I have ever met,” Jeffrey Goding, Managing Director of Hammer and Company. “Our thoughts and sympathies are with his family at this difficult time.”

Michael was best known as a public speaker and co-author, with James Champy, of the 1993 book Reengineering the Corporation, which spent more than a year on The New York Times and other bestseller lists. Michael is also the author of The Reengineering Revolution (1995), Beyond Reengineering (1997), and The Agenda (2001).

 

Reengineering is one of the classics of modern process architectures, if not the only one.

I was reading The Cathedral and the Bazaar by Eric Steven Raymond, an online article about two types of development approaches.  I stumbled upon this great quote:

9. Smart data structures and dumb code works a lot better than the other way around.

While the article is focused on open source development, there are some great concepts in it that could easily apply to data and process model development.

By the way, Raymond is paraphrasing a quote from Fred Brooks of The Mythical Man Month, a classic in itself.

Brooks, Chapter 9: ``Show me your flowchart and conceal your tables, and I shall continue to be mystified. Show me your tables, and I won't usually need your flowchart; it'll be obvious.'' Allowing for thirty years of terminological/cultural shift, it's the same point.

This does remind me it is time to read the Mythical Man Month again.  You should, too.

When Is a Rose Not a Rose?

John Zachman has announced changes to his operating companies. ZIFA will be winding down and Zachman International will be the primary organization for delivering Zachman Framework related products and services.

Stan Locke will be Managing Director and President, and John's son, John P. Zachman will be VP of Marketing.  David Kingston, of Toronto, will be VP Customer Support Systems.

Sam Holcman of Pinnacle Business Group and partner in ZIFA will be moving on to his work in EACOE.

John also announced a new website, which looks great (it also uses a content management system similar to InfoAdvisors' site).

• Register

• for our iPod Touch® Give-away! (even if you are already a member).

• for the new Enterprise Standards

• to see or print the new Enterprise Framework2 graphic.

• Review

• my own 'wikipedia' concise definition of The Zachman Framework.

• the details of Zachman Certified requirements for practitioners, methodologies and tools.

• current and popular articles and reference material.

• Frequently Asked Questions that I personally have answered.

• timely announcements and press releases.

• Purchase our support products (requires registration)

• Various editions of my eBook.

• any of the new Zachman Framework2 posters.

• the new Framework2 model kits .

• An annual subscription to access the MetaFrameworks research work

• See and plan for

• Attending a scheduled conference engagement

• Attending a MasterClass course on our schedule.

• Requesting an in-house seminars or executive briefings.

If you register for the new site (and you should, even if you previously registered with ZIFA), you will be eligible to win an iPod Touch.  John is doing the right thing by not assuming that information collected as part of ZIFA should be reused without your consent for ZI.  So get over there and register.

So get on over there, register, and dip into all the great stuff available.

Zachman International

It's Friday and I thought you'd all enjoy watching this video to remind you of your favorite data & process modeling sessions.  This one is about the interactions between overly-zealous marketing consultants and a designer, but I can certainly see parallels to some possible business processes I've been pitched by overly-zealous business people.

Of course, now that I think about it, I've definitely been pitched data models that looked a lot like the resulting product of this video...Hmmmmmm.

Creating A Stop Sign video