Michael Blaha

Since 1994 I have been a consultant and trainer in conceiving, architecting, modeling, designing, and tuning databases for dozens of organizations around the world. I have authored six books, seven US patents, and many papers. I received my doctorate from Washington University in St. Louis and am an alumnus of GE Research in Schenectady, New York.

My first book was Object-Oriented Modeling and Design co-authored with Jim Rumbaugh, Bill Premerlani, Fred Eddy, and Bill Lorensen in 1991. This book presented the OMT methodology, one of the precursors to the UML. The five of us leveraged our GE experience to define a set of notations for object-oriented software as well as a simple development process. This was the first book for all of us and it became a seminal book that succeeded beyond our wildest imagination.

My most recent book is the "UML Database Modeling Workbook". If you are involved in data modeling and have to work with customers to obtain requirements, this book is for you. The book has two novel aspects. (1) The book explains the UML class model (the UML model most relevant to databases) by comparison with a conventional data modeling notation (IE). (2) The book is loaded with exercises, tests, and answers so that you can practice with the material and see if you are on track. There are 50 pages of answers in the book! Few other books can match this depth of exercises and answers.

Another recent book that I wrote is Pattern of Data Modeling. If you are an advanced database developer you should find this book helpful. For example, there's 6 patterns for modeling trees and 6 patterns for modeling directed graphs.

I also have two video courses that are available from O'Reilly -- Learning Data Modeling and Agile Data Warehouse Design.