data mesh

  • Letting Go of Data, Part III: The mesh that’s already there

    In the first two articles in this series, I compared some different approaches to organizational data design. Part I spelled out the difference between top-down (Inmon) and bottom-up (Kimball) methods of data warehousing. Part II talks about alternative approaches with data vaults and data lakes. All of this concerns how to best build a centralized…

  • Letting Go of Data, Part II: Data in a vault at the bottom of a lake

    In Part I of this series on corporate data design, I went over a fairly old, but still relevant debate between a top-down, or Inmon method, approach to data warehousing, or a bottom-up, or Kimball method, approach. In short, the top-down method starts at the broadest view of the business and attempts to design an…

  • Letting Go of Data, Part I: Kimball vs. Inmon is a false dichotomy

    Conceptually, there are competing versions of data warehousing strategies that are employed industrially. One (false) dichotomy that is commonly shared is between the bottom-up and top-down approaches to designing a data warehouse. The difference between these two is, essentially, the answer to this question: “Should we try and bring together all of our data into…