Do you have a data model of your production schema?

For almost a year I have been running a poll on my blog with the above question. Finally the polling time has come to an end and I have some results I can share with you.

In total I had 36 votes for the poll with the question Do you have a data model of your production schema? and the results are as follows.

* 33% answered 'YES'.
* 58% answered 'NO'
* 8% answered 'I don't know'


What does this tell us?

I know the sample of 36 is too small almost irrelevant, but what is the right size anyway?

By looking at these results can we say that people in majority 58% do not know the data model of their databases?

I suppose as long as the database is performing well and there is enough space to accommodate whatever is thrown into the database, all is jolly and fine and nobody complains. Especially with technologies such as Hibernate where the data model is derived and implemented automatically from the object model persistence layer!? Who cares about Primary Keys and Foreign Keys, is this the end of databases? Is this how I should interpret this? I am not sure.

Next, what can we say for the second group of voters who are the 33% and who said, Yes! Are these voters in a stronger position than the voters of the 58%? Does this mean that this group does know their data model and do understand the relationships between their entities, and therefore command the SQL and either as a DBA or Developer are able to write better SQL scripts and much more high performance queries and code. Once again I am not sure.

Last the 8% who said 'I don't know', were they just casual visitors who just wanted to show their indifference in data modeling but at the same time, by voting chose to show that they were still involved with database systems? Again I don't know.


What I know is that all of you who voted gave me a small glimpse of what is out there and may I send you a BIG THANK YOU for that!