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We are in the midst of a data explosion that shows no signs of slowing down. While data-driven organizations have more information to work with than ever before, this also means dealing with more data sources, siloed data, complexity in data integration and data access, and growing data compliance mandates. All of which poses a significant challenge for data architects to manage while still keeping organizations flexible and agile. 

As one of the fastest-growing trends in data and analytics, data fabrics have cemented themselves as a popular solution to today’s data challenges. However, there is still some confusion regarding the finer details of a data fabric and how it can provide the most benefit to your business.

Animal, Vegetable, or Architecture? Breaking Down Data Fabrics

It’s obviously important to understand what a data fabric is, but it is equally critical to know what a data fabric is not. Many vendors claim that a data fabric is a single product or platform that you deploy within your current architecture. This, however, is not the case. A data fabric is, appropriately, more like a quilt: a unified collection of pieces—in this case, shared data assets and optimized data fabric pipelines—that incorporate a converged set of capabilities to provide unique and powerful value. 

This means that, unlike other data architectures, a data fabric gives you the flexibility to deploy in phases across the cloud, on-premises, and in hybrid environments, while still providing one virtual place to go for a wide variety of data use cases, including analytic, transactional, governance, operational, and self-service. Data fabrics also span more data types and methods, such as data-in-motion and data-at-rest from on-premises, cloud, IoT devices, and third-party sources. 

While the value and benefits are significant, a data fabric is not necessarily a quick-fix solution. Data fabric implementation requires new technology, new architecture, and new processes. A thorough plan and a well-thought-out implementation strategy are critical. A data fabric is also not necessarily the right choice for every organization. Even data-driven businesses may not have the kind of complex data landscape that could benefit from the deployment of a data fabric.

What Can a Data Fabric Do for Me?

Data fabrics overcome complex data challenges in a unified way, ensuring access to all of your organization’s distributed data sources while maintaining data security and proper governance. Data fabrics allow businesses to overcome their data silos, optimize and accelerate their data pipelines, and react to change with agility.

Data fabrics can be used by a wide range of people across your enterprise, including not only data users accessing the data views but also data engineers, data architects, application engineers, data stewards, and business users.

A data fabric saves you time and money by streamlining your data and metadata management and accelerating time to value. A data fabric also allows you to benefit from technology innovations sooner while still ensuring proper data governance and control.

Build a Data Fabric That’s Just the Right Fit with TIBCO

If a data fabric is the right solution for your business, TIBCO is uniquely positioned to help begin your data fabric journey regardless of how large or small that first step will be. TIBCO also offers the only data fabric architecture that converges data integration, data and metadata management, and data delivery along with holistic asset sharing that simplifies governance, security, and control.

TIBCO also supports nearly every deployment or adaptation option available, giving you the flexibility to meet your unique and evolving data fabric needs without having to limit yourself to a particular architecture pattern, cloud supplier, or technology-enabling solution.

A data fabric gives you the flexibility to deploy in phases across the cloud, on-premises, and in hybrid environments, while still providing one virtual place to go for a wide variety of data use cases. Click To Tweet

Read the full whitepaper now for the answers to all your data fabric questions, as well as critical advice on successfully implementing and leveraging data fabrics.