Relational Model, also known as the Bill Inmon approach or hub-and-spoke Corporate Information Factory (CIF), is a data modeling technique, where acquired source data is processed into normalized (3rd Normal Form) data structures, storing atomic data, and providing single source of truth to entire enterprise, therefore called Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW).

Emphasizes a top-down approach, where integrated, enterprise-wide data warehouse is built first, that feeds into specialised data marts (focused segments of data, designed to serve specific needs) afterwards.

CIF focuses on integrated data, subject orientation (categorizes data into business domains), time-variance (output response depends on moment of observation) and non-volatility (consistent historical record).

Pros

• Consistency (uniform data definitions)
• Reduced redundancy and data silos
• Unified view across organization (single source of truth), facilitates holistic decision making.

Cons

• Not intuitive to business users
• Big impact on model when business changes
• Requires higher effort and duration to implement
• Very complex data transformations (mainly due to Normalization)
• Normalized model requires more JOINs, that may reduce performance, to query data