Enterprises everywhere, big and small, are experiencing exponential growth in data. Today, the main asset owned by some of the largest corporations in the world is data. This exploding growth in data naturally requires organizations to seek and adopt modern data storage and management constructs such as data lakes. Unlike traditional data warehouses, data lakes store raw, unprocessed data that can be transformed and analyzed in various ways.
In This Article:
- Importance of data modeling for data lakes
- Data Modeling Considerations for Data Lakes
- 1. Identify the data sources
- 2. Define the data schemas
- 3. Determine the data ingestion process
- 4. Choose the appropriate storage format
- 5. Establish data governance policies
- 6. Consider performance and scalability
- 7. Define access control and permissions
- 8. Incorporate cataloging and metadata management
- Conclusion
Importance of data modeling for data lakes
To take full advantage of the benefits of a data lake and to make it valuable for all stakeholders, including data scientists, data engineers, business analysts, and other decision-makers, it is essential to have a robust data modeling and design strategy that considers the unique characteristics and nuances of data lakes.
Data modeling is the process of creating a logical representation of an organization’s data architecture to facilitate efficient retrieval, analysis, and storage of its data assets. The goal is to create a model that can be used to store, manage, and query data from multiple sources quickly and efficiently.
When approaching data modeling for a data lake, there are several key considerations. These include:
Data Modeling Considerations for Data Lakes
1. Identify the data sources
The first step in data modeling for a data lake is to identify the various sources of data that will be ingested into the data lake. This may include structured and unstructured data, data from various applications and databases, and data from external sources such as social media or IoT devices.
2. Define the data schemas
Once the data sources have been identified, the next step is to define the data schema or structure for each data source. This involves defining the tables, fields, and relationships between the data sources. Data stewards should also capture and document any data attributes which may be reused across different data sources and help build/maintain the enterprise data model.
3. Determine the data ingestion process
The data ingestion process is the process of moving data from the source systems into the data lake. This may involve a simple batch process, ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) processes or real-time data streaming. Validation and transformation rules should also be established to ensure the data is clean and consistent before it is loaded into the data lake. Use of services such as AWS Glue can be helpful in this process.
4. Choose the appropriate storage format
The next step is to decide on the best format for storing data in the data lake. Common storage formats include Parquet, ORC, or Avro since they allow efficient compression of large datasets and are optimized to be queried with SQL engines (e.g., Hive, Presto). Choosing the right storage format is critical since this decision can impact data lake’s performance, scalability, flexibility and cost.
5. Establish data governance policies
Data governance policies are critical in a data lake environment to ensure data quality, security, and compliance. It is important to establish data governance policies early in the data modeling process. The six step plan to implement data governance is an effective way to establish a working governance model for your data lake.
6. Consider performance and scalability
Data lakes can contain vast amounts of data, so it is important to consider the performance and scalability of the data model. This may involve partitioning the data or using distributed processing frameworks such as Hadoop or Spark.
7. Define access control and permissions
Access control and permissions are essential in a data lake environment to ensure that only authorized users have access to sensitive data. It is important to define access control and permissions early in the data modeling process.
8. Incorporate cataloging and metadata management
Metadata management is critical in a data lake environment to provide data context and make it easier to discover, search and query the data. It is important to incorporate metadata management into the data modeling process.
In addition to defining a structure for the data stored in the data lake, it is important to build an efficient cataloging system that can be used to track and manage the different versions and types of data stored in the lake. This will allow data owners to easily search, access and query the data as needed.
Conclusion
Overall, data modeling for a data lake is more than coming up with the data schemas and must include consideration of the various factors that can impact the successful use of the data lake. By following these key considerations discussed in this article, you can develop a robust data model that supports your organization’s needs and goals in an agile manner.