Data Model

Lexical.cloud curates cloud products into hierarchical groups, also known as a taxonomy. Taxonomy terms are populated by metadata in each product, product tier and glossary entry.

Entry Type	Description	Directory in product catalog
Product	Documented cloud products	products/{service}/{provider}/{product}
Product Tier	Tiers of cloud products	products/{service}/{provider}/{product}/{tier}/{tierProduct}
Glossary	Terms in product taxonomy	glossary/

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Taxonomy Group

Terms for each group originate in products. The glossary independently defines a term.

erDiagram
    GLOSSARY |o..|| SERVICE : defines
    GLOSSARY |o..|| PROVIDER : defines
    GLOSSARY |o..|| DOMAIN : defines
    GLOSSARY |o..|| CATEGORY : defines
    GLOSSARY |o..|| FEATURE : defines
    GLOSSARY |o..|| LABEL : defines
    SERVICE ||--o{ PRODUCT : originates
    PROVIDER ||--o{ PRODUCT : originates
    DOMAIN ||--o{ PRODUCT : originates
    CATEGORY ||--o{ PRODUCT : originates
    FEATURE ||--o{ PRODUCT : originates
    FEATURE ||--o{ PRODUCT-TIER : originates
    LABEL ||--o{ PRODUCT : originates
    LABEL ||--o{ PRODUCT-TIER : originates
    PRODUCT ||--o{ PRODUCT-TIER : has
    PRODUCT-TIER ||--o{ PRODUCT-TIER : has

Group	Description	Example Terms
Service	Purpose of a cloud product	Monitor, Governance
Provider	Originator of a cloud product	AWS, Azure, Google Cloud
Domain	Collection of services with intersecting categories	Observability, Modernization
Category	Group specific to a domain and/or service	Auditing, Dashboards
Feature	Specific functionality from a product	Alerts, Reports
Label	Attribute of a product	Deprecated

Example Metadata

Let’s explore product entries for monitoring products:

---
services:
  - "monitor"
providers:
  - "aws"
domains:
  - "observability"
categories:
  - "telemetry data"
features:
  - "alerts"
  - "open telemetry"
title: "Amazon CloudWatch"
linkTitle: "Amazon CloudWatch"
---

---
services:
  - "monitor"
providers:
  - "azure"
domains:
  - "observability"
categories:
  - "telemetry data"
  - "auditing"
features:
  - "alerts"
title: "Azure Monitor"
linkTitle: "Azure Monitor"
---

---
services:
  - "monitor"
providers:
  - "gcp"
domains:
  - "observability"
categories:
  - "dashboards"
  - "telemetry data"
features:
  - "alerts"
  - "open telemetry"
title: "Google Cloud Monitoring"
linkTitle: "Google Cloud Monitoring"
---

And glossary entries that support them:

---
title: "Observability"
linkTitle: "observability"
definitionLink: "https://glossary.cncf.io/observability/"
services:
  - "monitor"
---

---
title: "Telemetry Data"
linkTitle: "telemetry data"
definitionLink: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telemetry"
services:
  - "monitor"
domains:
  - "observability"
---

---
title: "Open Telemetry"
linkTitle: "open telemetry"
domains:
  - "observability"
---

---
title: "Alerts"
linkTitle: "alerts"
definitionLink: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alert_messaging"
---

Notice the relationship of glossary linkTitle with the product entries.

What about product tier entries?

The products above did not have any product tiers, but examples would be:

Model
Component

---
features:
  - "example feature"
labels:
  - "example label"
title: "Product Name (model name)"
linkTitle: "Model Name"
productHierarchyTier: "model"
---

---
features:
  - "example feature"
labels:
  - "example label"
title: "Product Component Name"
linkTitle: "Component Name"
productHierarchyTier: "component"
---

Notice that services, categories and domains were not listed. They’re inherited from the product. It’s possible to list additional entries for all groups, but that is not illustrated on this page.

Products vs Product Tiers

Difference	Product	Product Tier
Location	`{product-path}/product-id.md`	`{product-path}/product-id/tier-id/tier-product-id.md`
Attribute	N/A	`productHierarchyTier="model" or "component"`
Groups	can inherit from glossary	also inherits from product

Models vs Components

Difference	Model	Component
Purpose	Types of a product	Sub-products
Nesting	Under product or component	Under product

Term Relations

The glossary optionally relates each term to ancestor groups. Many products reference each term.

erDiagram
    PRODUCT ||--o{ PRODUCT-TIER : has
    GLOSSARY |o..|| SERVICE : defines
    GLOSSARY |o..|| PROVIDER : defines
    GLOSSARY |o..|| DOMAIN : defines
    GLOSSARY |o..|| CATEGORY : defines
    GLOSSARY |o..|| FEATURE : defines
    GLOSSARY |o..|| LABEL : defines
    SERVICE ||--o{ PRODUCT : relates
    PROVIDER ||--o{ PRODUCT : creates
    DOMAIN ||--o{ PRODUCT : relates
    CATEGORY ||--o{ PRODUCT : relates
    FEATURE ||--o{ PRODUCT : relates
    FEATURE ||--o{ PRODUCT-TIER : relates
    LABEL ||--o{ PRODUCT : describes
    LABEL ||--o{ PRODUCT-TIER : describes
    DOMAIN }|--o{ DOMAIN : relates
    DOMAIN ||--o{ SERVICE : relates
    CATEGORY ||--o{ DOMAIN : relates
    CATEGORY }|--o{ CATEGORY: relates
    FEATURE ||--o{ CATEGORY : relates

Group	Ancestors	Descendants
Service	N/A	Domain, Category, Feature
Provider	N/A	N/A
Domain	Domain	Service, Category, Feature
Category	Domain, Service, Category	Feature
Feature	Domain, Service, Category	N/A
Label	N/A	N/A

Domain and Category can have subgroups. i.e. container orchestrator and kubernetes

Logical Data Model

Terms referenced in product entries inhert their ancestors from the glossary.

erDiagram
    GLOSSARY |o..|| PROVIDER : defines
    GLOSSARY |o..|| SERVICE : defines
    GLOSSARY |o..|| DOMAIN : defines
    GLOSSARY |o..|| CATEGORY : defines
    GLOSSARY |o..|| FEATURE : defines
    GLOSSARY |o..|| LABEL : defines
    GLOSSARY {
        string title
        string linkTitle PK
        url definitionLink
    }
    SERVICE }|--|{ PRODUCT : relates
    SERVICE }o--o{ DOMAIN : relates
    SERVICE {
        string term PK
    }
    PROVIDER }|--|{ PRODUCT : creates
    PROVIDER {
        string term PK
    }
    DOMAIN }|--|{ PRODUCT : relates
    DOMAIN }o--o{ CATEGORY : relates
    DOMAIN }|--o{ DOMAIN : relates
    DOMAIN {
        string term PK
        array services FK
        array domains FK
    }
    CATEGORY }|--|{ PRODUCT : relates 
    CATEGORY }o--o{ FEATURE : relates
    CATEGORY }|--o{ CATEGORY: relates
    CATEGORY {
        string term PK
        array services FK
        array domains FK
        array categories FK
    }
    FEATURE }o--o{ PRODUCT : relates 
    FEATURE }o--o{ PRODUCT-TIER : relates 
    FEATURE {
        string term PK
        array services FK
        array domains FK
        array categories FK
    }
    LABEL }o--o{ PRODUCT : describes
    LABEL }o--o{ PRODUCT-TIER : describes
    LABEL {
        string term PK
    }
    PRODUCT {
        string title
        string linkTitle
        array services FK
        array providers FK
        array domains FK
        array categories FK
        array features FK
        array labels FK
    }
    PRODUCT ||--o{ PRODUCT-TIER : relates
    PRODUCT-TIER ||--o{ PRODUCT-TIER : relates
    PRODUCT-TIER {
        string title
        string linkTitle
        string productHierarchyTier
        string parentProductTier
        array features FK
        array labels FK
    }

The model flexibility incurs some complexity and potential of duplicate relationships.

Physical Data Model

Each product specifes minimal taxonomy terms and infers relationships from the glossary.

erDiagram
    GLOSSARY }o--o{ GLOSSARY : relates
    GLOSSARY {
        string title "Full title of term"
        string linkTitle PK "Term name as referenced by products"
        url definitionLink "Optional link to definition"
        array services FK "List of terms for related services"
        array domains FK "List of terms for related domains"
        array categories FK "List of terms for related categories"
    }
    GLOSSARY }o..o{ PRODUCT : relates
    PRODUCT ||--o{ PRODUCT : "has tiers"
    PRODUCT {
        string productHierarchyPath PK "Nested path to product or tier"
        string title "Full title of entry"
        string linkTitle "Short title of entry"
        array services FK "List of terms for related services"
        array providers FK "List of terms for related providers"
        array domains FK "List of terms for related domains"
        array categories FK "List of terms for related categories"
        array features FK "List of terms for related features"
        array labels FK "List of terms for related labels"
        string productHierarchyTier "Optional tier of product hierarchy "
    }

Each product and tier entry should minimally list or inherit a service, domain and category. The productHierarchyPath is not an actual column but the physical path in the directory tree.