THE META GRID MANIFESTO
towards a third wave of data decentralization
September, 2024
The first wave of data decentralization came with microservice architecture, which liberated operational data from monolithic technologies supporting the value chain, propelling high-performing companies forward.
Building on this momentum, the second wave emerged with Data Mesh architecture. It freed analytical data from monolithic constraints, unlocking greater potential for data and AI innovations.
Now, the Meta Grid architecture represents the third wave of data decentralization. By liberating metadata from traditional technologies used in metadata management, it aims to enhance the logic and cohesion of the Enterprise IT landscape.
To fulfill its role, metadata must reside both at its source, alongside the entity it describes, and elsewhere, to ensure that the entity is searchable and discoverable.
Enterprise IT landscapes are made searchable through metadata repositories, which are often implemented and maintained in isolation by various teams across the organization. This approach results in a multitude of conflicting, single-view-of-the-world representations of the enterprise IT landscape.
No single technology can serve as the ultimate metadata repository nor can it resolve the issue of these fragmented views scattered across different metadata repositories.
Humanity will never fully rely on technology like that.
Instead of creating an ultimate monolith of metadata, we must do the exact opposite: strive toward the decentralization of metadata. While Metadata repositories will continue to exist, the decentralization in this context means recognizing that no single repository can provide a perfect view of the IT landscape.
Instead, metadata types are managed within a grid, and this grid expands into a grid of grids as more types of metadata are added, forming new, previously unseen patterns. The Meta Grid, by nature, will always be incomplete.
Microservice and Data Mesh architectures are complex, big, and fast. They are complex because they rely on sophisticated programming languages, big because they work with large volumes of data, and fast because they are intended for high-speed exchanges.
By comparison, the Meta Grid is simple, small, and slow. It is simple because it relies on spreadsheets, out-of-the-box connectors, and occasionally self created APIs. The Meta Grid is small, as the total amount of metadata is significantly less in volume and entities compared to Data Mesh and Microservices. It is slow because it doesn’t rely on real-time or frequent exchanges of data.
The true challenge of the Meta Grid is that it is both inevitable and unseen. It permeates the operational, regulatory, and innovative endeavors of the enterprise, spanning the disciplines of data, information, and knowledge management.
The Meta Grid transforms siloes of meaning into fragments of shared understanding.
Searching for Data is created by Ole Olesen-Bagneux, Ph.D. in Library- & Information Science, and a seasoned specialist, leader, architect - and a tech author.
Ole Olesen-Bagneux is currently writing Fundamentals of Metadata Management, (O'Reilly, 2025). The book describes a large subset of the metadata repositories that look at the IT-Landscape, in the disciplines of data, information, and knowledge management. The book provides a unique key to use metadata to document, understand and control your IT landscape. That key is the Meta Grid.
Ole Olesen-Bagneux is the author of The Enterprise Data Catalog, (O'Reilly, 2023) - top-rated, praised by industries, technologies and thought leaders worldwide, as well as being #1 Bestseller on Amazon in the Network Storage and Retrieval Administration category - and translated into Portuguese by Novatec Editora in São Paulo, Brazil.
Via Searching for Data, Ole Olesen-Bagneux offers the following services:
You are welcome to reach out if you have something else in mind. Please note that Searching for Data is not a classic consultancy company, and that all services are remunerated.
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