Ontology-Guided Data Mesh Design for Decentralized Governance

  • Authors

    • Dr. Seppo Linnainmaa Professor of Computer Science, University of Helsinki, Finland. Author
    • Dr. Arto Salomaa Professor of Computer Science, University of Turku, Finland. Author

    DOI:

    https://doi.org/10.67228/30715717/IJDEIC-2023PII8P5R

    Published 12-06-2023

  • Data Mesh, Ontology, Decentralized Data Governance, Semantic Interoperability, Federated Data Architecture, Knowledge Graph, Metadata Management, Data Products, Data-as-a-Product, Domain-Driven Design

    Issue

    Vol. 6 No. 2 (2023)

    Section

    Articles

    How to Cite

    [1]
    S. Linnainmaa and A. Salomaa, “Ontology-Guided Data Mesh Design for Decentralized Governance”, IJDEIC, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 01–13, Dec. 2023, doi: 10.67228/30715717/IJDEIC-2023PII8P5R.

  • Abstract

    The rise of Data Mesh as a paradigm for large-scale data management has challenged the traditional monolithic data lake approach by promoting decentralized ownership, domain-oriented architecture, and self-serve infrastructure. However, without a unified semantic layer, decentralization can lead to fragmentation, inconsistency, and governance bottlenecks. This paper proposes an ontology-guided approach to Data Mesh design, leveraging domain ontologies to ensure semantic interoperability, governance automation, and federated data product discovery. By aligning domain-specific knowledge structures with data product metadata, we demonstrate how ontologies facilitate coherent data governance across distributed teams while preserving the autonomy of individual domains. We explore architectural patterns, governance workflows, and implementation considerations, and present a case study to illustrate the application of this approach in a real-world enterprise setting.

  • References

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