Understanding Modern Data Architecture

Organizations have begun to built data warehouses and lakes to analyze large amounts of data for insights and business reports. Often time they bring data from multiple data silos into their data lake and also have data stored in particular data stores like NoSQL databases to support different use cases. To analyze all of this data spread across, businesses often move data in and out of the data lake and between these data stores. As data grows in size, this data movement can get complex and messy.

To solve this problem, organizations must develop a data architecture that allows scalable and cost-effective data warehouses and lakes. The architecture should also support data governance and data movement between the various stores. This architecture is called modern data architecture. The aim of the architecture is to make data available in a seamless, well-governed, and optimized manner across businesses and organizations.

This post will discuss the importance of modern data architecture, its core principles, and the problems it solves.

What is a Modern Data Architecture?

Modern data architecture is like a map of how data is being captured, stored, processed, and analyzed when it enters an organization. It is essential because it can turn large datasets into actionable insights, support new business models and products, streamline data flows, and reduce costs.

Challenges Addressed by Modern Data Architecture

With traditional data architectures, organizations and businesses often encounter data silos, scalability, data quality, integration, and real-time analytics issues. Modern data architecture provides a much more flexible, scalable, and integrated approach to data management.

Core Principles of Modern Data Architecture

Modern Data Architecture is built upon several core principles, some of which are explained below.

1. Scalability

This is the most essential feature of any modern data architecture. To accommodate rising data volumes, high data velocity, and the increasing number of data sources, a modern system needs to be able to scale both horizontally and vertically. 

Organizations can use cloud platforms like AWS, Hevo, Azure, and Google Cloud for scalable data systems. Their pay-as-you-go model provides both the storage and computational power needed to scale data systems cost-efficiently.

For Example, consider a retail organization that experiences notable increase in data generation throughout the holiday seasons. Thanks to its scalable architecture, the organization may dynamically modify resources, allowing it to handle the data influx without sacrificing efficiency. This guarantees that the organization can carry out analytics on supply, consumer behavior, and sales data without any downtime.

2. Flexibility: Handling Different Types of Data

A modern data architecture should be able to store all kinds of data, from structured data in relational databases to unstructured data such as text and pictures. This means that, with suitable data systems, companies can quickly create new products and services that use data.

For example, a healthcare company might have tools for storing patient data, tracking fitness data, and performing research. A flexible data architecture allows these data sources to be combined to predict patient outcomes or uncover the causes of disease.

3. Interoperability: Making Systems Work Together

The term refers to the idea that systems, platforms, and tools can work together efficiently. In the context of data architecture, this means that data should be able to flow easily between different parts of the system without any extra effort. This is important for organizations that use different tools to process, analyze, and generate insight.

For instance, a financial company might use different software to gather data, process it, and display it in graphs. If these tools do not work together, the company can slow down and make decisions more difficult.

4. Resilience and Reliability: Keeping Data Safe and Available

In general, modern data systems should be robust and stable. Downtime and data loss can be costly, so modern architectures incorporate fail-safes and ways to keep data safe even if other things go wrong.

For example, an online retail company might store its data on different servers across several countries. If one place is not working, the company can continue to operate, and consumers can continue to shop.

5. Security and Compliance: Protecting Data

Security and compliance are two cornerstones of modern data architectures. As the number of cyberattacks increases and stricter data privacy laws, organizations must enforce robust security measures in the design of their data system. 

Hevo prioritizes data security and compliance with industry standards like GDPR, CCPA, and HIPAA. It offers features such as data encryption, access controls, and audit trails to protect sensitive data.

For example, a healthcare provider must ensure that patient data is secure and accessible only to appropriately authorized individuals. They should have robust access controls, encrypt sensitive data, and keep a detailed log of all data accesses and uses.

6. Real-time Data Processing: Making Decisions Quickly

Making decisions based on data over time is a trend. To make decisions quickly and securely after the data is generated, companies need a data architecture that can process data in real-time. Modern data architectures, like the one we are using, can handle both batch and real-time processing so companies can get their insights as the data is generated.

For instance, a web application powered by Netflix’s massive streaming service uses real-time data processing to monitor user behavior and recommend new shows on the spot, improving the experience and keeping customers happy.

Key Components of Modern Data Architecture

A modern data architecture is composed of several interconnected layers, each layer playing a critical role in data management and analytics:

1. Data Ingestion Layer

• What it does: This layer is responsible for ingesting data from various sources, including back-end and front-end APIs, relational and non-relational databases, IoT devices, social media, and many others. The systems in this layer have to be able to ingest data in batches and in real-time to support changing business requirements. 

2. Data Storage Layer

• What it does: The data storage layer stores ingested data. It must be able to handle both raw and processed data and support different storage models, such as data lakes, data warehouses, and hybrid solutions.

3. Data Processing Layer

• What it does: The processing layer houses the tools for transforming raw data into usable formats for analytics and decision-making. This layer consists of data cleansing, transformation, and enrichment processes. 

4. Data Integration Layer

• What it does: The data integration layer connects data from various sources into one central view. It supports ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) and ELT (Extract, Load, Transform), cleaning, normalizing, and preparing data for analysis. 

5. Data Management Layer

• What it does: The data management layer provides data governance, quality management, and metadata management. This layer guarantees that data is accurate and consistent and within organizational policies and regulations. 

6. Data Access Layer

• What it does: This is the layer where end-users interact with data through analytics tools, dashboards, and reports. This layer provides secure and efficient access to data, enabling stakeholders to explore and analyze it without heavy reliance on IT teams. 

7. Data Security Layer

• What it does: The data security layer ensures data security, providing safeguards against vulnerabilities and breaches. This includes encryption and access controls, data masking, and auditing. 

Emerging Trends in Modern Data Architecture

New trends in data architecture could change how organizations use and control data thanks to more integrated and flexible technology.

•  Data Fabric and Data Mesh: These approaches focus on decentralized data ownership, treating data as a product, and enabling self-service data access. With this service, data silos can be broken down, and organizations can have more access to data.
• Serverless Architectures: Serverless data architectures remove the need to manage infrastructure, making it easier and more cost-effective to scale data processing and storage. This approach is ideal for organizations looking to minimize operational overhead.
• AI and Machine Learning Integration: Combining AI and machine learning capabilities directly into data architectures allows for more automated data processing, anomaly detection, and predictive analytics.
• Multi-cloud and Hybrid Approaches: Organizations are increasingly adopting multi-cloud and hybrid architectures to optimize costs, enhance flexibility, and ensure data resilience. This approach allows them to leverage the best features of different cloud providers.
• DataOps and MLOps: These practices aim to streamline the processes involved in data management and machine learning operations, promoting collaboration between data engineers, scientists, and analysts to accelerate time to insight.

Explore the differences between Data Mesh and Data Warehouse in our detailed guide to help you choose the right architecture for your data strategy.

Case Studies

To demonstrate these principles, let’s look at how some leading companies have implemented modern data architectures:

1. Netflix: Netflix uses a modern data architecture that combines Apache Kafka, Cassandra, and AWS S3 to manage and analyze massive amounts of real-time and historical data. This architecture supports their recommendation engine, content delivery optimization, and personalized user experiences.
2. RXNT: RXNT, a SaaS solution for healthcare providers, uses Hevo’s pre-built connector to combine data from different sources, such as Azure SQL Server, Cosmos DB, HubSpot, Stripe, and Google Analytics, to generate customer-facing and executive reports.
3. Postman: Postman, the world’s leading API platform, uses Hevo Data’s extensive connector coverage, fresh integrations, and reliable data integration platform to save 30-40 hours of its developer bandwidth that would otherwise be spent maintaining and fixing pipelines.
4. Airbnb: Airbnb’s data architecture leverages tools like Apache, Hadoop, Spark, and Presto to handle diverse data types from their platform. This architecture supports complex data analytics, pricing models, and machine learning applications that help optimize their services.
5. Uber: Uber’s architecture integrates technologies like Kafka, Flink, and Hudi for real-time analytics, enabling use cases like dynamic pricing, route optimization, and fraud detection.

Explore Databricks Medallion Architecture in detail to understand how it fits into modern data architecture and optimizes data workflows.

To Wrap it Up

Modern data architecture is essential for organizations to thrive in today’s data-driven world. By adopting the core principles and leveraging emerging trends, organizations and businesses can unlock the full potential of their data, gain competitive advantages, and drive innovation.

Schedule a personalized demo with Hevo to build a modern and scalable data architecture.

FAQ