Below is a diagram describing the governance process of defining and implementing business concepts in a data mesh environment. The business glossary domain is the user facing side of a data catalogue whereas the data management domain is the backend topology of the data catalogue. It describes how business concepts are implemented in databases, whether in virtual or persistent storage.
But first and foremost: it is the glue that holds any dispersed data landscape together. If you can govern the meaning of any data model, any implementation of concepts like PARTY, PARTY ROLE, PROJECT, ASSET and PRODUCT to name a few, the data can be anywhere, in any form but the usability will be guaranteed. Of course, data quality will be a local responsibility in case global concepts need specialisation to cater for local information needs.
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| Business perspective on defining and implementing a business concept for a data mesh |
FAQ on this process model
Why does the process owner initiate the
process?
The reason is simple: process owners have a
transversal view on the enterprise and are aware they organisation needs
shareable concepts.
Do we still need class definitions and
class diagrams in data lakehouses?
Yes, since a great deal of data is still in
a structured ”schema on write” form and even unstructured or “schema on read”
data may benefit from a class diagram creating order in and comprehension from the underlying data. Even
streaming analytics use some tabular form to make the data exploitable.
What is the role of the taxonomy editor?
He or she will make sure the published
concept is in synch with the overall knowledge categorisation, providing “the
right path” to the concept.
Is there always need for a physical data model?
Sure, any conceptual data model can be
physically implemented via a relational model, a NoSQL model in any of the
flavours or a native graph database. So yes, if you want complete governance
from business concept to implementation, the physical model is also in scope.
Any questions you might have?
Drop me line or reply in the comments.
The next blog article Best Practices in Defining a Data Warehouse Architecture will focus on the place of a data warehouse in a data mesh.
