Data fabric architecture is a primary element of success for data-driven organizations.

Astrix recently hosted a roundtable discussion for senior executives of several leading pharmaceutical and biotech companies. In this second of two articles, we share additional perspectives and practices for enhancing their organizations’ use of critical information via the production of data fabric.

The adage, “garbage in, garbage out” is a fundamental concern in the planning and organization of an organization’s data fabric but it is no more crucial than its operational design. This is an essential yet sometimes overlooked issue that can render a design inadequate in terms of efficient and reliable data extraction. And, when this occurs, researchers and regulatory authorities will be unhappy.

Business users want data accessible in real-time, for early looks, exploration, insights, etc., however, when organizations have legacy infrastructure such as multiple data warehouses and/or data lakes, it can pose a considerable challenge to overall data management and architecture strategies.  This can be an especially acute problem when data is derived from external sources.

Here are five of the key insights on which our expert client panel agreed:

1. To prevent data’s physical location from restricting or impeding its findability, the architectural design needs to focus on bringing all the data generated into a single data lake with which to build an intelligent fabric, data backbone, or virtual data layer.
2. To facilitate teams in the construction of infrastructures capable of focusing on users’ data needs and providing rapid access (while mapping and managing data patterns behind the scenes), it is essential to recognize and enable different patterns of data ingestion and use.
3. To build an efficient infrastructure, organizations are well advised to bear in mind that the understanding and value—and ways in which data is used—evolve. There are use cases where data and data products are well-defined and reusable but, in other cases, data use may yet be fully realized.
4. To enable systems to scale in the future, it is important to fully consider the technology solutions and their ability to support performant data use at high volumes. This is especially relevant if the organization is contemplating a search for (or acquisition of) a large volume of experimental instrumentation data, or other data science use cases, which may rely on large data sets and compute-intensive resources.
5. To help support tracking data usage and provide the entryway to data exploration, a Data Catalog is a critical data architecture element. Effective data catalogs are used across organizations to help data governance to succeed because of their ability to ensure that data meets specific quality criteria for inclusion.

Capturing metrics on data usage trends informs plans and decisions on access and availability.

• Having metrics on data use and reuse (active and augmented metadata) can aid an organization’s understanding of both how it’s being leveraged and how often.
• The insights and perspectives on what data is most important to users enable IT teams to prioritize their efforts toward ensuring specific data’s quality, access, and availability throughout the entire enterprise.
• When selecting, or working with, third-party vendor partners it is crucial to confirm that:
  • Their technological capabilities are sufficient to meet user needs, and
  • They can align with the real-time data strategy.

Summary

It is critically important, when looking to incorporate new emerging technologies like Data Fabric into your business, that you ensure you have the right external organizations involved who can assist you. Formulating the appropriate strategy along with the proper processes, and technology is imperative. Astrix’s team of professionals have worked with many of the top life science organizations to assist them with respect to their business needs in these areas. As a partner without a preconceived preference for a specific technology, we work closely with your team to ensure solutions are reviewed and incorporated into your business that will help you succeed.

About Astrix

Astrix is the unrivaled market-leader in creating & delivering innovative strategies, solutions, and people to the life science community.  Through world class people, process, and technology, Astrix works with clients to fundamentally improve business & scientific outcomes and the quality of life everywhere. Founded by scientists to solve the unique challenges of the life science community, Astrix offers a growing array of strategic, technical, and staffing services designed to deliver value to clients across their organizations.