
Why You Need a Strategic Data Service - jasonkolb
http://www.jasonkolb.com/why-you-need-a-strategic-data-service/
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VonIgelfeld
Now I understand the value of data, but what most companies miss is the value
of consumer privacy. We like our privacy and will pay for it if we need to.

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ianfernz
Typical data capture and analytics isn't like Prism. Seriously, you
overestimate your own importance. Facebook doesn't care what you individually
do, it's all about collecting statistics about everyone so they can better
reach the groups you're a part of.

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hengheng
I know, and I'd rather the service be paid for by myself than by a secret
service.

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jrullmann
The author says that different data stores are good at different things, so we
need to use multiple data stores in our application. He proposes that a data
service layer can abstract these implementations, making it easier to swap out
data stores as needed. I think that's a good idea. Separating our applications
from data store specifics is a big reason why we use ORMs and ODMs today.

However, I think there are challenges with this polygot data store
architecture that he doesn't address. Each addition requires due diligence to
understand its CAP trade-offs (which the author mentions briefly), scalability
and performance characteristics, how to configure, etc. These are non-trivial
concerns even for a single database. It's important to consider these
challenges when building out a data store or data service.

I'd propose an architecture where the data services layer itself exposes
different data models to the application, all of which are persisted in a
single data store. Given that many data stores use a key-value store under the
covers anyway, translating the specific data model down to a single,
persistent data store would simplify operations while exposing the desired
data model to the application. (As a caveat, this multi-model approach
requires ACID transactions to ensure strict consistency when translating
between data models.) This approach provides operational simplicity with just
one data store and application efficiency by exposing the "right" data model
API.

Full disclosure: I'm an engineer at FoundationDB, a database that provides
ACID-compliant polygot data models on a single key-value data store
([http://www.foundationdb.com](http://www.foundationdb.com)).

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abekarpinski
Predictive analytic is the thing I'm most interested in right now. Trying to
use past data to predict the success of future product launches. I can say
that having your data decoupled will save you some major headaches later on.

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k0
Great topic Jason. It seems the footnote links [2], [3], etc are missing
something...I'm getting "File Not Found"/custom 404.

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cylentwolf
I had the same issue and was coming here to post the same thing.

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mdda
Where did the footnotes go?

