Central Data Platform Versus Data Mesh
TradeoffPrincipalUpdated
A 2,000-engineer company has 40 product domains and a central data team of 25 with a nine-month backlog of pipeline requests. Most domains already have engineers maintaining unofficial pipelines of their own.
Short answer: Data Mesh. Give domains ownership of their data products and turn the central team into the platform that makes publishing them easy.
The Two Options
A
Central Data Platform
B
Data Mesh
Drill This: Your Pick First
The Better Pick
Option B
Data Mesh
Give domains ownership of their data products and turn the central team into the platform that makes publishing them easy. Twenty-five people cannot learn 40 domains well enough to model their data, which is why the backlog keeps growing and shadow pipelines keep appearing. The central team still sets shared standards for schemas, quality checks, and access control.
When the Other One Wins
Central Data Platform
When the company has a handful of domains, or few engineers with data skills outside one team, a central data platform is faster and more consistent.