Misconception: [Insert Vendor] Offers a Data Mesh

We believe this misconception comes from trying to sell data fabric products as a data mesh. The term data fabric is hard to define but vendors have jumped on it pretty hard. Those same vendors (and some new ones) are trying to do the same to data mesh.

To be clear, data mesh is much more than a technology or architecture.

There are a number of companies saying they sell a data mesh as of around February or March 2021. Some are large enterprise companies where you might expect some marketing overreach. Cloud vendors are at least towing the line a bit better, but some of them are saying you can build a data mesh with their cloud.

Given that data mesh is much more than an architectural or technology-based approach, saying you “offer a data mesh” is in opposition to the data mesh approach. Phrasing it as “we offer a self-service data platform for your data mesh” would make far more sense and earn more credibility with end users.

To be clear, technology/architecture is a crucial part of data mesh. But none of these companies are including “data product thinking” as part of their offerings and thus, are not a data mesh as defined by Zhamak.