Entity-Relationship (ER) Model is based on the notion of real-world entities and relationships among them. While formulating real-world scenario into the database model, the ER Model creates entity set, relationship set, general attributes and constraints.

ER Model is best used for the conceptual design of a database.

ER Model is based on −

• Entities and their attributes.
• Relationships among entities.

These concepts are explained below.

• Entity − An entity in an ER Model is a real-world entity having properties called attributes. Every attribute is defined by its set of values called domain. For example, in a school database, a student is considered as an entity. Student has various attributes like name, age, class, etc.
• Relationship − The logical association among entities is called relationship. Relationships are mapped with entities in various ways. Mapping cardinalities define the number of association between two entities.
• Mapping cardinalities −
• one to one
• one to many
• many to one
• many to many

Relational Model

The most popular data model in DBMS is the Relational Model. It is more scientific a model than others. This model is based on first-order predicate logic and defines a table as an n-ary relation.

The main highlights of this model are −

• Data is stored in tables called relations.
• Relations can be normalized.
• In normalized relations, values saved are atomic values.
• Each row in a relation contains a unique value.
• Each column in a relation contains values from a same domain.