Data Mesh

Part I. What Is Data Mesh?

. . .the only simplicity to be trusted is the simplicity to be found on the far side of complexity.

Alfred North Whitehead

When you look at the application of data mesh, like the Daff, Inc., example from the opening of the book, you get a sense of the engineering and organizational complexity required to implement it. We could probably talk about these complex and intricate pieces of data mesh implementation for a while. Instead, to understand data mesh, I like to discuss it from its first principles. Once we understand its basic elements, then we can assemble them from the ground up to create the implementations.

This is how I’m going to introduce data mesh to you in this part of the book, focusing on its first principles and how they interact with each other.

These principles are propositions and values that guide the behavior, structure, and evolution of its implementations. My intention for this part of the book is to create a foundation that provides a baseline for future refinements of practices and technology.

It’s worth considering that this book is being written at the time when data mesh is arguably still in the innovator and early adopter phase of an innovation adoption curve.¹ It’s at a phase where the venturesome innovators have embraced it and are already in the process of creating tools and technologies around it, and the highly respected early adopters are shifting their data strategy and architecture inspired by data mesh. Hence, it’s ...