Data Mesh Resources

If you’re new to data mesh, we recommend the Getting Started with Data Mesh page then following up with additional content here. To be clear, you do not have to consume all of the following content to understand the basics of data mesh. This is a good path of escalation and learning so you can truly grok how you might implement at your company. 

The Overview includes structured learning content in multiple formats, and additional content can be viewed by content type.

Overview
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Sources

Overview

The next piece we recommend is Zhamak’s recent podcast interview with Barry O’Reilly (LinkedIn; Twitter) on the Unlearn podcast. A key point is how to get started with deploying data mesh at minute 35. Decentralizing Data​: From Data Monolith to Data Mesh with Zhamak Dehghani (audio with accompanying written overview but no transcript; 56min). As a simple refresher on what you’ve learned, we recommend reading through this quick article that does a good job laying out the four pillars of data mesh and the potential challenges. The sales-y level is low enough to not be annoying.

After consuming content on Getting Started with Data Mesh:

Data Mesh: The Four Principles of a Distributed Architecture by Eleks (consulting company). After the Getting Started page and these two pieces of content, you should understand quite a bit about data mesh. 

If you’d like to continue learning, we recommend the following pieces of content:

A presentation by Zalando and ThoughtWorks on Zalando’s data mesh implementation. It really crystalizes the way you could implement a data mesh yourself e.g. how to offer self-serve data infrastructure. By Max Schultze, Zalando (LinkedIn) and Dr. Arif Wider, ThoughtWorks (LinkedIn): Data Mesh in Practice: How Europe’s Leading Online Platform for Fashion Goes Beyond the Data Lake

Next, we recommend Zhamak’s original data mesh article on Martin Fowler’s blog: How to Move Beyond a Monolithic Data Lake to a Distributed Data Mesh.  It is a very dense but incredibly well-written and organized overview, offering a solution to the VERY large problem impacting many companies using a data lake. Zhamak prescribes to the saying of “you can’t just point out a flaw, you need to offer a solution” so she did. 

Zhamak’s appearance on Sam Ramji’s (LinkedIn; Twitter) Open Source Data podcast gives a bit of a different flavor in that it is less interview about data mesh and more of a conversation that touches on many topics. It covers microservices and service mesh’s influence on data mesh and how Zhamak adapted her thinking from the operational plane to apply to the analytics plane. Data Meshes: Big Data Architecture Becoming Distributed, Declarative and Domain Oriented (audio; transcript available; 28min)

Next is Zhamak’s second article on Martin Fowler’s blog where she delves deeper into data mesh. It’s another incredibly well written piece that answers a lot of the lingering questions from her initial post. Data Mesh Principles and Logical Architecture by Zhamak Dehghani

Data Mesh Articles

Slightly More In-Depth: What is a Data Mesh — and How Not to Mesh it Up by Barr Moses of Monte Carlo; a good overview of data mesh. The figure below is a very interesting competitive differentiator of data mesh. Also, this article does a good job of creating a “is data mesh right for my company” test. Check it out.

How and why successful data-driven companies are adopting Data Mesh by Agile Lab (consulting company). This post makes some very good observations about the current state of data management and why data mesh is different. We particularly liked the below.

Now that you have a firm understanding of data mesh as a concept, we recommend you read the O’Reilly book by Zhamak Data Mesh: Delivering Data-Driven Value at Scale.

Data Mesh Videos

Xconf (ThoughtWorks Conference) Keynote – Data Mesh by Zhamak Dehghani (39min). This video by Zhamak does a great job of slowly introducing the concepts, reinforcing the basics of data mesh. If you feel you have a good grasp, you can skip it.

We recommend you follow on with two interviews that reinforce the issues that really led to data mesh. Zhamak talks about the framework she developed and how the domain-driven distributed architecture and data product thinking were the two key pieces of data mesh; everything else in the framework is included to solve the issues caused by those two pieces. She also provides some deeper dive into federate governance and the data platform needed for data mesh. Jon talks about the real-world examples of customers just not being agile at all and the brittleness of pipelines in the data management status quo. A reason why data mesh is so exciting for so many is the quick-mover benefits of microservices applied to the data management space:

That should give you a strong overview of data mesh, some applications, and strong reinforcement of the fundamentals. 

Data Mesh Podcasts

We recommend you listen to at least one of the following; all four are very instructional as a data mesh overview with Zhamak as the guest but mostly cover the same ground, a basic introduction to data mesh:

Next, we recommend a bit more of a conversational approach to data mesh: Zhamak’s conversation with Sam Ramji on the Open Source Data podcast. It’s less instructional-focused and much more about the broader implications of data mesh. Open Source Data (28min; transcript available): Data Meshes: Big Data Architecture Becoming Distributed, Declarative and Domain Oriented with Zhamak Dehghani

Another one you may want to check out is a discussion trying to figure out the differences between data mesh and data fabric (as defined by Gartner, not as defined by data fabric vendors). It is by the folks from data.world. Catalog and Cocktails: Is Your Data Fabric a Mesh; 35min; no transcript available

Sources

If you’re looking to stay current on data mesh topics, these are a few sources we recommend. If you have a great source to add to this list, let us know.

Data Mesh Learning Newsletter – Join over 6400+ subscribers for community-produced content, news and analysis, and upcoming learning events – webinars, meetups, trainings, etc.

Data Mesh Learning YouTube – Watch end users case studies with the Data Mesh User Journeys playlist, go deep on data mesh topics with the Data Mesh Learning Meetup recordings, watch vendor interviews, and more.

Data Mesh Radio Podcast – A podcast produced by Scott Hirleman, original founder of Data Mesh Learning and community member. Listen to in-depth interviews with data pros on a range of topics related to data mesh.

Our mission is to provide you with the best data mesh content no matter where you are in your data mesh journey. We’ll be adding more resources and updating the website in 2023. Have an idea or something to add? Let us know: community@datameshlearning.com