THE META GRID MANIFESTO

towards a third wave of data decentralization

August, 2024

1. The Meta Grid is the third wave of data decentralization

Microservice architecture liberated operational data from monolithic technologies supporting the value chain and accelerated high performing companies. This was the first wave of data decentralization.

Data Mesh architecture liberated analytical data from monolithic technologies supporting insigths and increased the potential of data and AI innovations. This was the second wave of data decentralization.

The Meta Grid architecture proposes to liberate metadata from monolithic technologies supporting metadata management to enhance the logic of the Enterprise IT landscape. This is the third wave of data decentralization. 

2. The Meta Grid unlocks single-view-of-the-world monoliths

To fulfill its role, metadata must both be at source, with the thing it describe, and somewhere else, to make that same thing searchable and discoverable.

Enterprise IT landscapes are made searchable in metadata repositories. These are implemented and maintained in isolation, by various teams across the organization. Altogether they produce a plethora of opposing, single-view-of-the-world realities of the enterprise IT landscape.

There is no one, single technology that will be the ultimate metadata repository. It cannot solve the problem of the many, single views of the world scattered across metadata repositories depicting the enterprise IT landscape.

Humanity will never use technology like that.

3. The Meta Grid is incomplete

Instead of creating the ultimate monolith of metadata, we must do the exact opposite. We must strive towards a decentralization of metadata. Metadata repositories will continue to exist, the decentralization of metadata in this technological context is understanding that no metadata repository alone can contain the perfect view of the IT landscape.

Instead, types of metadata are managed as a grid, and accumulated as a grid of grids, as more types of metadata is added to the grid in new, hitherto unseen patterns. The Meta Grid, by nature, will always be incomplete.

4. The Meta Grid is simple, small and slow 

Microservice and Data Mesh architectures are complex, big and fast. They are complex because they rely on sophisticated programming languages, big because work with large volumes of data and fast because they are intended for high-speed exchanges. 

By comparison, Meta Grid is simple, small and slow. The Meta Grid is simple as 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 smaller in volume and entities than Data Mesh and Microservices. The Meta Grid is slow because it does not rely on real-time of frequent exchanges of data. 

The true challenge of the Meta Grid is that it is unavoidable, yet unseen: The Meta Grid stretches deep into the operative, regulative and innovative endeavours of the enterprise, and across the disciplines of data, information and knowledge management. 

The Meta Grid replaces siloes of meaning to 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. Services include advisory on everything metadata management, both the specific tooling such as Enterprise Architecture Management tools, Data Catalogs and many more, and the more holistic architectural approach - the Meta Grid.

The main customers are large, European industrial companies, with IT landscapes of significant complexity and age. Reach out via LinkedIn for detailed list of services.

Ole Olesen-Bagneux is currently writing Fundamentals of Metadata Management, also with 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, published by 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.

working on it :)

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