title: How to model "reference data" in a Document Database model?
body: <p>I’m creating a <em>document model</em> of my entities to store in a Document Database (RavenDB). The domain I’m modeling revolves around <code>Incidents</code>. An incident has a source, a priority, a category, a level of impact and many other classification attributes. In a RDBMS, I’d have an Incident table with Foreign Keys to the Priorities table, the Categories tables, the Impacts tables etc but I don't know how to handle that in a document database (that is my first Doc BD).</p>
  
  <p>I have two types of reference data:</p>
  
  <ol>
  <li><p>Simple lookup values: <code>Countries</code>, <code>States</code>, <code>Sources</code>, <code>Languages</code>. Attributes: They only have a Name but this is a multilingual system so there is name for each language. Supported operations: create, delete, rename, deactivate and merge.</p></li>
  <li><p>Complex reference data: Same as the Simple Lookups plus: Several of those have many fields and have business rules and validation rules of their own. For instance two <code>Priorities</code> cannot have the same <code>Rank</code> value. Some have a more complex structure, for instance <code>Categories</code> are composed of <code>Subcategories</code>. </p></li>
  </ol>
  
  <p>How should I model those as (or as part of) documents?</p>
  
  <hr>
  
  <p>PS: Links to <em>Document Database Modeling Guidelines</em> would be appreciated as well</p>