1.3 How Does LANSA Help with Data Modeling?
A methodology helps you formalize your actions, whereas an application development tool helps you automate your actions. LANSA is methodology or approach independent. This simply means that regardless of the approach you plan to use to design your application, LANSA will assist you in building the application.
If you use the software engineering approach, you can use the Logical Modeler to define your database and then use LANSA's process, function and component structures and the rich development facilities to build your application. Using the various Frameworks provided with LANSA, you can rapidly build prototypes over the physical database created by the Logical Modeler.
If you use the information engineering methodology, you have LANSA's Logical Modeler to design and implement your information model and supporting physical database.
LANSA allows the system's analyst to build up and manipulate a complete logical data model comprising elements, entities and relationships and applies data analysis rules to ensure that the model is properly normalized. It then allows the physical database to be generated from the logical model, but recognizes the fact that there will be differences between the two. For example, for performance reasons, you may not wish to implement a fully normalized database.
LANSA documents the logical data model in such a way that it is understood by users. It can be reviewed and verified by the users as part of the analysis/design process before any physical database is built.
The LANSA Logical Modeler improves the developers productivity by automating the build of the physical database. The modeler helps the developer to create quality databases with a consistent standard. It supports the concept of a corporate data types and allows the developer to define standards for the implemented physical database.