Patterns / Data Architecture
Data Mesh
Domain-owned data products on a self-serve platform with federated computational governance.
Domains
Data Products
Self-Serve Platform
Federated Governance
Consumers
Conceptual flow
Problem
A central data team becomes the bottleneck between domain knowledge and analytical demand.
Context
Large organisations with strong domain boundaries and a mature platform engineering capability.
Solution
Domains publish data products with explicit contracts, SLOs, and discoverability; a platform team supplies self-serve infrastructure; governance is encoded as policy.
Benefits
- Domain accountability
- Parallel delivery
- Better data semantics
Risks
- Duplicated effort without a platform
- Inconsistent quality
- Governance theatre
Trade-offs
- Autonomy over central standardisation
When to use
- Many analytical consumers
- Clear domain ownership
- Existing platform capability
When not to use
- Small teams
- No platform investment appetite
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