> So if you model a Y cable as two physical cables No. Model it as two abstract "Physical Links" or "Connections" which FK to the same physical cable Asset, wh

> So if you model a Y cable as two physical cables No. Model it as two abstract "Physical Links" or "Connections" which FK to the same physical cable Asset, which is uniquely determined by its inventory ID and/or manufacturer model+serial. If a Link needs to know whether its part of a Y cable Asset, it can join the Asset table. If a Y cable Asset needs to know what it's connected to, it can join the Link table. Additionally, you have a nice clean Link table for doing graph traversal (get me everything connected to this impacted Asset by degree <= 2), and a nice clean Asset table for inventory tracking.