They are widely used to design relational databases. What are the uses of ER diagrams? Where are they used? Although they can be used to model almost any system they are primarily used in the following areas.
One of the early forms of ER diagrams, Bachman diagrams are named after him.įor a detailed history of ER diagrams and the evaluation of data modeling, refer this article. His model was inspired by the data structure diagrams introduced by Charles Bachman. The focus was on entities and relationships and he introduced a diagramming representation for database design as well. Peter Chen is credited with introducing the widely adopted ER model in his paper “ The Entity Relationship Model-Toward a Unified View of Data“. Although many solutions were proposed and discussed none were widely adopted. ER Diagram Template for Student Enrollment System (Click on image to modify online) History of ER DiagramsĪlthough data modeling has become a necessity around 1970’s there was no standard way to model databases or business processes.