What is data architecture?
Data architecture is the blueprint for how data flows through your organisation — what gets collected, where it lives, how it transforms, how it's governed, and where it's activated. It's the foundation layer beneath every dashboard, AI agent, and business decision. A solid data architecture is the difference between data that's usable in seconds and data that takes weeks to wrangle for every new question.
What does Decision Foundry's data architecture service include?
Discovery and current-state assessment (what systems exist, what flows between them, where the gaps are); target-state design (data warehouse, lakehouse, or mesh patterns matched to your scale); data model design (logical and physical); pipeline orchestration architecture; governance and observability framework; vendor and platform selection (Snowflake, Databricks, BigQuery, Redshift, MS Fabric); and a phased migration roadmap that doesn't break production.
How is data architecture different from data engineering or data modelling?
Architecture sets the blueprint — the systems, flows, and platforms. Data engineering builds and operates that blueprint — pipelines, ETL/ELT, observability. Data modelling is one component of architecture: the logical structure of dimensions, facts, and relationships. We deliver all three together because architecture without engineering produces shelf-ware diagrams; modelling without architecture produces local optimisations that don't scale.
How long does a data architecture engagement take, and what does it cost?
A focused architecture assessment (current-state + target-state + roadmap) runs 6–10 weeks as a fixed-fee engagement. A full architecture redesign with migration runs 4–9 months depending on the number of source systems and the complexity of the target platform. We typically begin with an assessment, then phase the migration over multiple releases. Every engagement starts with a free discovery call.
We already have Snowflake or Databricks — do we still need architecture work?
Often yes — having the platform doesn't mean the architecture around it is right. Common scenarios: data is loaded but no medallion or lakehouse layers exist, governance is missing, lineage is opaque, the model isn't dimensional, or activation patterns weren't designed up front. We work with what you have and architect intentionally around it rather than recommending unnecessary replatforming.
Why Decision Foundry for data architecture?
We've been doing enterprise data architecture since 2004 — across Snowflake (Select Partner), Databricks (Premier Partner), AWS, Azure, GCP, and the Salesforce platform. 200+ data projects delivered, including complex multi-cloud architectures in retail, financial services, healthcare, and media. Our FDE engineers embed inside your team — so the architecture reflects how your business actually operates, not a textbook diagram.