Rapid Battle Cards 1–10
1 — Data Architecture vs Data Modeling & Design
- Architecture: enterprise needs, master blueprints, alignment, roadmap.
- Modeling & Design: discover/represent detailed requirements and design structures.
- Deciding clue: enterprise alignment/target blueprint → Architecture; CDM/LDM/PDM, keys, normalization → Modeling & Design.
2 — Model vs Diagram
- Model: the complete representation, potentially including diagrams, definitions, issues, lineage, Metadata.
- Diagram: one visual view.
- Deciding clue: do not assume one picture equals the whole model.
3 — Entity vs Entity Instance
- Entity: type/concept, e.g.
Student. - Instance: one occurrence, e.g. one named student.
- Deciding clue: type vs occurrence.
4 — Cardinality vs Arity
- Cardinality: zero/one/many instance participation and optionality.
- Arity: number of entity types in the relationship.
- Deciding clue: how many occurrences vs how many participating types.
5 — Unary Hierarchy vs Unary Network
- Hierarchy: an instance has at most one parent of the same entity type.
- Network: an instance may have multiple same-type parents.
- Deciding clue: one-parent maximum vs multiple parents.
6 — Composite vs Compound Key
- Composite: 2+ attributes.
- Compound: composite whose components are foreign keys.
- Deciding clue: every compound is composite; foreign-key composition makes it compound.
7 — Super Key vs Candidate Key
- Super: any unique attribute set, possibly with unnecessary attributes.
- Candidate: minimal unique set.
- Deciding clue: can an attribute be removed and uniqueness remain? Yes → not minimal/candidate.
8 — Primary vs Alternate Key
- Both start as candidate keys.
- Primary: selected candidate.
- Alternate: candidate not selected.
- Deciding clue: chosen vs unchosen candidate.
9 — Business vs Surrogate Key
- Business: meaningful to business recognition/retrieval.
- Surrogate: generated technical identifier with no business meaning.
- Deciding clue: semantic/business meaning vs technical/no intelligence.
10 — Identifying vs Non-identifying Relationship
- Identifying: parent PK migrates into child PK.
- Non-identifying: parent PK migrates as a non-PK FK.
- Deciding clue: does the migrated parent key participate in the child primary key?
Source anchors: current Battle Cards, Chapter 5 cards 1–10.