Re: How to document a DB

Hi

I have had to do a similar task in the past and I found it better to talk to a sub-set of business users first to understand two things. First the business and secondly how the business maps to the applications they use. I tried to do this as at an overview level rather than in great detail. I started by finding out what "sections" exist in the company, then got someone to recommend a good contact from each section who understands the business and also understands the applications. I sat down in front of the applications with each person and sample paperwork. I deliberately didn't go to the n'th degree but to try and understand at a high level what goes on and how the data / business flows through the business. I also tried to work from start to finish, i.e customer contact first, last payment made and paper work completed last. After I understood the business, main data flow and application, then I looked at the database schema and recorded the main entities - these then made much more sense in the document in relation to the business flow and so on. The document consisted of business sections and each section outlined the main flow, contact, application main screens and main database entities for the core data. I did mention some of your other ideas at the end such as security, backup, main personnel, hardware, software versions etc.

hth

kind regards

Pete

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Pete Finnigan
email:pete_at_petefinnigan.com
Web site: http://www.petefinnigan.com - Oracle security audit specialists
Book:Oracle security step-by-step Guide - see http://store.sans.org for details.