A new Enterprise data model, Data Mesh, is gaining popularity.

Data meshes are essentially a combination of storage, compute and data analytics software to provide solutions for enterprises looking for easy access to their data assets.

Data meshes differ from traditional data lakes in several ways. For example:

  • A data mesh uses technologies like Hadoop, Spark and Kafka as a platform for storing and processing data. This allows companies to perform real-time processing on their datasets as opposed to waiting until after the fact like with most traditional approaches that use MySQL databases or NoSQL databases (like MongoDB).

  • Data meshes have built-in collaboration tools that allow multiple users in an organization to share information seamlessly without any additional effort required by IT teams. This allows employees across departments who may not normally work together at all times but need access to each other’s projects be able to collaborate effectively on projects without having access issues due lack of communication between departments; so instead of having multiple people working on different tasks only one person will do all of them at once without needing approval from anyone else because they can see what others are doing while also doing their own thing at once which cuts down overall costs significantly when compared with using traditional methods like emailing back forth between teams before decisions need approval.

The difference between a data lake and a data mesh

The difference between a data lake and a data mesh is the way they store and analyze data. A centralized architecture like Hadoop, Kafka, or Spark clusters can be considered a data lake. These single-point failures are susceptible to outages or errors that may impact your entire organization’s ability to get real-time answers.

By contrast, decentralized architectures involving an array of business domain specific systems and applications that can be used in conjunction with each other offer an alternate approach: building an open source system that uses multiple copies of the same dataset across different nodes in order to keep things consistent without exposing your organization to single points of failure.

Put simply, Data mesh is a decentralized data architecture that eliminates the need for a centralized data lake. Data lakes are clearly inefficient and scale poorly, which makes them unsuitable for modern business needs. In contrast, the decentralized nature of the data mesh makes it more efficient and scalable than any centralized solution.

Data Mesh architecture is designed to overcome some of the architectural disadvantages of Data Lake.

Here are some ways that Data Mesh aims to overcome the disadvantages of a traditional Data Lake:

  • Data Mesh is a decentralized architecture; it’s not dependent on any single point of failure. You can scale up or down as needed and you have control over your own data stores.

  • Data Mesh enables you to store your data independently from application services that consume it so there are no bottlenecks in accessing your data or integrating with third-party applications. This also enables greater flexibility in terms of deployments and maintenance by eliminating the risk of an outage resulting from changes made by a single team member.

  • A distributed system scales horizontally while maintaining performance because each technological node or business unit operates independently without any dependencies on other nodes or central services such as message queues, databases etc. 

  • Data meshes are an ideal solution for organizations looking to better manage and make data more readily available to users throughout the organization. With a data mesh model, users can access data through an API (application programming interface) rather than having to access the centralized data lake. This is beneficial because it makes it easier for IT teams to scale as needed, which isn’t possible with traditional models like lakes or cubes.

Data Mesh helps break down barriers between teams and allows data users to take ownership of their data.

By enabling Business Domain Data Ownership, meaning a specific department of the business i.e. Marketing being responsible for their own data platforms and assets, data mesh enables data to be effectively controlled by those closest to it. Ideally, this includes even those with no technical skills, though this usability depends on the details of a given technology stack.

Data meshes enable users to access the data they need for their jobs, not just an entire subset of it. In addition, the ability to quickly make changes or add new data types keeps people from getting bogged down by bureaucracy. Data meshes give users direct access to the exact information they need without being slowed down by tedious processes or waiting on others when they need answers fast.

A Data Mesh also makes it easier for teams to conform to data governance standards as well as other regulatory requirements such as GDPR.

A Data Mesh also makes it easier for teams to conform to data governance standards as well as other regulatory requirements such as GDPR, CCPA, APRA, OAIC and more. By putting the direct data producers and users in control of their own data governance processes in accordance with a centrally defined organizational policy, it becomes clear where more effort and potential improvements are required within the business.

A centralized, single source of the truth simplifies and streamlines compliance checks. In addition, data governance allows companies to protect themselves from legal and financial risks associated with inappropriate use of sensitive data stored in various silos, which could potentially cause a breach or impact the company’s reputation.

It’s time to start thinking about a revolutionary new approach to managing your enterprise data architecture.

The data mesh architecture is a decentralized approach to managing enterprise data that eliminates the need for a centralized data lake and replaces it with a singular system for connecting all of your enterprise systems in an end-to-end, non-relational database. A key advantage of this approach is that it allows each department or business unit to own its own data stores while still being able to share them with other departments and partners on an as needed basis.

Alex Solutions is the only end-to-end enterprise data solution, providing Connectivity Harvesting, Enrichment, Data Governance, Data Quality and Data Privacy. By unifying your enterprise system in a single, simple and social data workspace, Alex becomes the foundation of a Data Mesh. In short, Alex bridges the gap between data silos and puts data where it makes sense for each user.

Alex enables data teams to adopt a product lifecycle approach to data management by democratizing data access in the unified enterprise Catalog. Alex enables business users to easily understand and manage data to reduce the load on data teams. With simple dashboards and intuitive, configurable role-based Automated Workflows, Data can be controlled by business users in each department.

The Data Mesh is the new frontier in data architectures. While there may be some challenges at first, it’s clear that this new approach will revolutionize how enterprises manage their data. Reach out to Alex today to discuss how a Data Mesh could work for your enterprise:

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