Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) is ideal tool that helps execute the detalization of data warehouse for a given designed system, lets to document the system's entities, attributes (objects' properties), and their interactions each other (relationships). Creation of an ERD requires the choice of specific set of notations, which the best suits for your database design. Two notations - Chen’s and Crow's Foot are applied for ERDs design. Chen's notation was developed first and has linguistic approach, the boxes represent the entities and are considered as nouns, relationships between them are shown as diamonds in a verb form. Over time Chen’s style was adapted into the popular standard - Crow’s Foot notation, where entities are shown as boxes and relationships - as labeled lines.
ConceptDraw DIAGRAM software supplied with Entity-Relationship Diagram (ERD) solution offers samples and templates of ER diagrams, and also ready-to-use vector design elements - ERD Crow′s Foot and Chen's notation icons for easy designing your own ER diagrams for depicting databases.
