The Problem with Centralised Data Platforms
In a centralised model, a single data engineering team is responsible for ingesting, transforming, and serving data for the entire organisation. As the business grows, this team becomes an overwhelming bottleneck. Domain teams wait weeks for data pipelines to be built.
The Four Data Mesh Principles
- Domain Ownership: Each business domain owns its own data products.
- Data as a Product: Domain teams publish data with quality SLAs, documentation, and discoverability.
- Self-Serve Data Platform: A central platform team provides tooling so domain teams can manage data independently.
- Federated Computational Governance: Global standards enforced automatically, not by a central gatekeeper.