What is Data Mesh?
A decentralized data architecture that treats data as a product owned by domain teams.
Data mesh is a sociotechnical approach to data architecture introduced by Zhamak Dehghani. It shifts from centralized data platforms (data lakes, data warehouses) to a decentralized model built on four principles: domain ownership (domain teams own and serve their data as products), data as a product (each domain treats its data with product-thinking — discoverability, quality, documentation), self-serve data infrastructure (a platform that enables domains to create and manage data products without central bottlenecks), and federated computational governance (automated policies enforced across domains). Data mesh addresses the scaling challenges of centralized data teams but requires significant organizational maturity and investment in platform capabilities.
Related terms
Data Catalog
A searchable inventory of all data assets in an organization with metadata, lineage, and access information.
Data Governance
The framework of policies, processes, and standards for managing data assets across an organization.
Data Strategy
A comprehensive plan for how an organization will collect, manage, and leverage data to achieve business objectives.
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