Summary

Today you created a new ORM model, used it to create a database diagram, and used the diagram to create a physical database in SQL Server. You learned that by adding facts to the ORM model and setting roles and constraints on those facts, you can easily create a useful conceptual database model. After you've broken down the conceptual process into logical plain-English sentences, you can use Visio and Visual Studio .NET to manage your conceptual data models and physical databases using database diagram projects along with the ORM models that you create. The next step in understanding ORM is to use the tools in Visio to reverse-engineer a good example of a normalized database, such as the Pubs or Northwind databases that ship with MSDE and Visual Studio .NET. Doing so will help you understand how those facts make up the model that in turn creates the database.