Submodeling


Submodeling is a hierarchical way of organizing information supported by object references called hierarchical links.

Hierarchical modeling can serve many purposes (logical/physical, transformation, interface design, version management, etc.). Submodeling is available for data models only.
It is recommended to use sub-modeling only when the submodel's content of semantic information is different from the super-model. When the semantic information is the same but a different "view" of the information is required, a diagram should be used.


Creating a sub-data model

The submodels feature is tightly integrated with the copy and paste operation so that it is very easy to add a new submodel. Simply add a new data model in an existing one, select the desired objects in the supermodel and paste them in the sub model. The objects’ hierarchical links are automatically created.


Objects hierarchically linked

There are three ways to create hierarchical links:
  1. When pasting an object from the super-model to the submodel, hierarchical links are automatically created.

  2. When integrating a super-model and a submodel, association of objects between models will create hierarchical links.

  3. When editing an object's properties, you have access to its super-object; you can edit this object and select any other available super-object, if it has the same type and does not already have a sub-object in the same data model.

Graphic diagram options

Prefixes on table/view/column concepts can display the super/sub model’s hierarchical links.




Graphical representation of submodels

Graphical representations of submodels enable you to visualize the overview of a group of models, or simply to display the submodels of your Data Model
in a diagram. In the example below, we have separated the areas of a system into submodels. These submodels may then be associated to different target systems. As an example, The Customer Data Model could model a physical database to be implemented on Oracle, while the InternalProcess Data Model could model a critical database to be implemented Microsoft SQL Server and deployed on a high availability platform such as a Windows Cluster.