Industry foundation Data Models

An industry foundation Data Model simplifies Data Model design by providing a proven foundation that you can reuse and extend.

Use an industry foundation Data Model to:

• Reduce the effort that you spend identifying common business entities.
• Maintain consistency across solutions in the same industry.
• Reuse shared data structures instead of redefining them.
• Align with existing enterprise data and terminology.

Industry foundation Data Models are especially useful when you work in a well-defined industry domain or build multiple applications for the same business area.

An industry foundation Data Model describes business-level data. It focuses on what information the business needs to manage, such as customers, accounts, products, or transactions, and on how those entities relate to each other. Supporting documentation, such as diagrams and data dictionaries, helps your team understand the intent and scope of the model.

Design principle:  Separation of Concerns

Industry foundation Data Models apply the principle of  Separation of Concerns (SoC) by keeping business logic separate from data retrieval and integration logic. Business logic focuses on when the application needs data and how it uses that data to achieve outcomes. Integration logic handles how the application sources data from systems of record. This separation protects the Data Model and application behavior from changes in integrations, so that your solution remains flexible and maintainable as systems and data sources evolve.

You can extend an industry foundation Data Model rather than use it as-is. Adapt it by adding or refining the entities and information your solution requires, while keeping the core industry structure intact. This approach lets your solution meet unique business needs and retain the benefits of standardization and reuse.

Industry foundation Data Models are available for the following industries:

• Healthcare
• Communications and media
• Life sciences
• Insurance
• Financial services

These models give you an existing logical Data Model to start from, instead of defining data classes directly. When you map system-of-record properties to the data classes and properties in the industry foundation Data Model, you align your solution with industry-standard data structures and extend the model only where solution-specific requirements demand it.

All data modeling approaches follow the same conceptual, logical, and physical progression. The difference is where the design begins. The following table describes each approach and when to use it:

As stronger data foundations become available, the preferred approach shifts from building new models to extending existing ones, which promotes reuse, consistency, and long-term scalability.

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