Data Architecture Reference

Scalable Data Architecture for Analytics Organizations

An educational reference covering data lakes, warehouses, pipeline design, governance layers, and integration patterns — structured for Canadian enterprises building analytics capabilities.

-- Data architecture layers

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FROM architecture_reference
WHERE context = 'Canadian Enterprise'
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Architecture Topics

Six Core Architecture Domains

Structured reference material on the fundamental components of modern data architecture.

Storage

Data Lakes

Centralized repositories for structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data at scale — including storage formats, partitioning strategies, and lake house patterns.

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Storage

Data Warehouses

Optimized relational stores for analytical workloads — covering dimensional modeling, slowly changing dimensions, schema design patterns, and query optimization.

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Movement

Pipeline Design

Patterns and principles for building data pipelines — batch, micro-batch, and streaming architectures — with considerations for reliability, idempotency, and observability.

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Control

Governance Layers

Data cataloging, lineage tracking, access control, and quality management — the governance infrastructure that makes data assets discoverable and trustworthy.

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Connectivity

Integration Patterns

Enterprise integration patterns for connecting data sources — event-driven, API-based, and file-based approaches — and trade-offs between synchronous and asynchronous models.

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Output

Reporting Foundations

The semantic layer, metric definitions, and reporting architecture that bridge raw data to business dashboards — covering BI tools, semantic models, and self-service analytics.

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Architecture Is a Decision, Not a Default

Every architectural choice involves trade-offs between scalability, cost, governance, and operational complexity. The reference guides on this site help practitioners understand the options.

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