The Rise of Logical Data Management

Chapter 3. Data Mesh and Data Fabric

The earlier chapters identified many questions about how your business deals with distributed data. How do you collect that data to make it accessible to all your employees in a single unified format and location? How do you govern the data to ensure that it is accurate while also being secure? How do you create centralized accessible data while still maintaining the granularity and detail needed for domain-specific reporting?

These questions all challenge modern business methods for data management, and two approaches have been developed to tackle these problems: data fabric and data mesh. However, as we shall see, they approach the problem in different ways. This chapter digs into both of these solutions and uncovers how logical data management is the basis for both.

What Is a Data Mesh?

A data mesh is a mix of technical and business practices that empower domains within a company to manage and maintain their own data (see Figure 3-1). This approach enables them to meet their reporting needs without needing to force the data into a centralized governed structure. While some aspects of the data are controlled centrally through federated data management, the remainder is left to the specific data domain to maintain.

Figure 3-1. A data mesh empowers business-specific domains to manage their own data, allowing them to meet their own reporting ...