I’ve worked alongside data architects, then I was a data architect, then I managed data architects… and rinse & repeat across several companies. I shared 90% of this article author’s perspective … right up until I realized that the world has changed and my alignment dropped to 40%. The narrowness of the target (business decisions) no longer includes a substantial number of companies who produce and sell data — the client value proposition for data does not match business decisions by corporate leaders.

This changes the entire ecosystem, as it turns out. Semantics change (what is significant), trust measurement changes (Do customers trust our data? Do customers of our customers trust our data?), and reliability & freshness & speed ^& throughput & understandability & explainability (think results of AI/ML) add entirely new targets to solve for.

Data architecture is fitness and use and measuring the value of data, and how to make that sustainable in an organization. These threads were always present, but it’s no longer enough to talk to decision makers inside the walls of the business when your data does not stop at those walls.