Data Is king

Before the System Series Begins: Data Is King

First and foremost — Happy New Year! I’m excited for this year and I know it will be good.

Before I begin my series on different aspects of software architecture as I continue to learn, I want to share a belief of mine. Right or wrong, this is my opinion.

Data is king.

If you think about it, almost everything we do in software involves data. Decisions, processes, insights, and automation all rely on collecting, transforming, storing, using and interpreting data.

This is why I believe that to build successful architectures, you must understand the importance of data. Systems evolve and technologies change, but data often outlives the systems built around it.

Because of this, I belive data should be designed with longevity in mind. Spend more time modeling it carefully. Make sure it can survive architectural changes and system rewrites. Data rarely changes at its core. Systems do.

For example, moving from a monolithic system to microservices, or from request-driven to event-driven architectures, is a system design decision, not a data redesign problem. If your data model is tightly coupled to your current architecture, future changes will be painful.

We move.

Until next time, when I begin the series.