database design

LDDT had been developed in 1982 by Robert G. Brown of The Database Design Group entirely outside the IDEF program and with no knowledge of IDEF1. Nevertheless, the central goal of IDEF1 and LDDT was the same: to produce a database neutral model of the persistent information needed by an enterprise by modeling the real-world entities involved. LDDT combined elements of the relational data model, the E-R model, and data generalization in a way specifically intended to support data modeling and the transformation of the data models into database designs.

LDDT included multiple levels of model, the modeling of generalization/specialization, and the explicit representation of relationships by primary and foreign keys, supported by a well defined role naming facility. The primary keys and unambiguously role-named foreign keys expressed sometimes subtle uniqueness and referential integrity constraints that needed to be known and honored by whatever type of database was ultimately designed. Whether the database design used the integrity constraint based keys of the LDDT model as database access keys or indexes was an entirely separate decision. The precision and completeness of the LDDT models was an important factor in enabling the relatively smooth transformation of the models into database designs. Early LDDT models were transformed into database designs for IBM's hierarchical database, IMS. Later models were transformed into database designs for Cullinet's network database, IDMS, and many varieties of relational database.

The graphic syntax of LDDT differed from that of IDEF1 and, more importantly, LDDT contained interrelated modeling concepts not present in IDEF1. Therefore, instead of extending IDEF1, Mary E. Loomis of DACOM wrote a concise summary of the syntax and semantics of a substantial subset of LDDT, using terminology compatible with IDEF1 wherever possible. DACOM labeled the result IDEF1X and supplied it to the ICAM program, which published it in 1985. (IEEE 1998, p. iii) (Bruce 1992, p. xii)

To satisfy the data modeling enhancement requirements that were identified in the IISS-6202 project, a sub-contractor, DACOM, obtained a license to the Logical Database Design Technique (LDDT) and its supporting software (ADAM).