[claytonjy]

So Data Fabric is a bolt-on solution that we can't even honestly attempt today, while Data Mesh requires everyone in the engineering org to embrace data products?

Sounds like startups might adopt Data Mesh, while it's easy to reorient org-level behavior, but big enterprises are doomed to carry forward their current messes until AI magically delivers us Data Fabric as a viable option.

Anyone having more success with these approaches than my pessimistic take implies? Is it easier to adopt Data Mesh in a large org than I realize? Is Data Fabric a more viable option than the author considers?

[apahwa]

it isn't either-or. it is both.

if you view the data pipeline, you start with Data Mesh and individual teams create datasets that maintain the data for their team's domain. following that, you then get the data fabric which blends those domain specific datasets together automatically based off of the combination of a defined data model and the declared needs of consumers. a centralized team then owns those tables but not the business logic.

an example of this is Airbnb's data stack. You can read about it here: https://link.medium.com/qzqciW7Milb