Generating #datavault models & Issues to address | Accelerated Business Intelligence
I agree with Dan regarding his post on tools that generate DataVault models. Most of the tools that I have evaluated don’t go any further than generating a source DataVault as both he and Ronald Damhof have stated in posts long ago.
Without the necessary metadata and mathematical and technical stuff that Dan refers to, automatic model generation is not adding much value. And I wonder if we will ever get there. Even today – with the knowledge that we need lots of metadata – source systems get built without the badly needed metadata that would support automatic model generation from them. Most database systems don’t support storing all that metadata either as far as I know.
However I do see some added value with these (model generation) tools when we – the data modelers – create the needed metadata or semantic layer between the source system and the DataVault. Some of the tools even implicitly rely on that already. This semantic layer is the actual business view, the translation of the source model. It is data modeling by hand, just not necessarily with the usual data modeling tools. The model generation tools – when properly created – could support the data model governance lifecycle.