The Rise of Logical Data Management

Chapter 4. How Logical Data Management Works: An Overview

You’ve seen how businesses rely on different strategies to deliver data for analysis. Some use a data fabric to connect disparate data sources. Others rely on a decentralized data architecture, called a data mesh, to utilize the knowledge of their subject matter experts to deliver domain-specific data to the organization. Many use a mixture of a data fabric and a data mesh.

Both of these techniques can be supported by logical data management, but how does that management work, specifically? How does your company integrate its many systems under a system that facilitates integration, management, and delivery without replicating the huge volumes of data that are required to make it run?

Data Virtualization

The core underlying concept and technology behind logical data management is data virtualization, a data integration technique that allows your end users to access data from any location within your organization without needing to know where it came from, where it is located, or how it is formatted. This technique also provides a view that allows users to access and analyze information without needing to know the technical aspects of the source. More importantly, data virtualization does not require the replication of data. It instead provides a lens into existing data, making it easier to access, understand, and utilize.

You can think of data virtualization as being similar to a computer’s operating system. The underlying ...