A conversation with Data Mesh Live curator, Tom De Wolf

Why do you think it’s worth attending Data Mesh Live?

Data Mesh Live is unique in that it’s curated by the community and it’s focused specifically on Data Mesh. Other larger conferences might have some Data Mesh sessions, but this is a community-driven effort to bring together Data Mesh enthusiasts to drive forward its adoption and evolution.

There are many things to consider when implementing Data Mesh, and therefore opportunities to learn from others are invaluable. At the moment many Data Mesh events are happening online, but not much in person. Data Mesh Live changes that. Nothing beats an in-person conference where, next to all the talks and workshops, you get the possibility to meet face-to-face with others in the community.

Data Mesh borrows ideas from Domain-Driven Design but also from topics like Product Thinking, Systems Thinking, Evolutionary Architectures, Platform Engineering and Team Topologies. Integrating these ideas into the Data Management space will only improve how we manage data. Being co-located with Domain-Driven Design Europe will provide a natural cross-pollination of ideas between these expertise areas.

Who should attend Data Mesh Live?

The conference is for anyone who is already implementing Data Mesh or aspiring to do so. Given that Data Mesh is a cross-functional endeavour, various types of people can benefit; from data engineers, data managers, data governance people but also software engineers and architects. Even business management, who want to understand the practice in more detail and what this approach entails will benefit from attending.

How do you see Data Mesh evolving in the near future, and how do you hope this conference will contribute to that?

We’ll see the ideas from software engineering like DDD, Team Topologies et al come into the data management space.

I expect to see the four principles of Data Mesh - domain-driven ownership of data, data as a product, self-serve data platform and a federated computational governance - evolve towards expertise areas on their own, with a maturing set of tools and practices being developed for each of them.

Data Mesh proposes a divide-and-conquer strategy on your data landscape that is divided in reusable building blocks, called Data Products. The evolution is starting where this core concept of Data Mesh, i.e. a Data Product, is also becoming a core architectural component within platforms. I hope the Data Mesh Live conference contributes by bringing together like-minded people around Data Mesh and triggering productive discussions and collaborations to make this happen.

How are you thinking about putting together the line-up? What types of talks can someone expect to see? What trade-offs will you have to make?

For the line-up of Data Mesh Live, I aim to compose a program that covers as much as possible all four principles of Data Mesh. So it will be a mix of talks on platform architecture, data product management, federated governance, impact of decentralised ownership on data teams, metadata management, data models, etc. We don’t have the luxury of endless time, so we’ll have to make tradeoffs. For example, we might only select 1 talk out of a series of 5 good talks on the same topic so that we can have that mix. I also want the talks to be as Data Mesh specific as possible, so a talk on Data Mesh Governance that is very specific will always win versus a general data governance talk. And examples, examples, examples. To anyone submitting a talk, make sure to show that you will not only speak about theory but illustrate this with actual concrete examples.

What are you most looking forward to seeing at the conference?

That is simple, to gather the Data Mesh community in one place and to see a lot of people in person that I’ve met and interacted with online until now. In addition, I’m looking forward to see the Data Mesh community meet the Domain Driven Design community and the results that might come out of this.

Why did you decide to get involved in Data Mesh Live?

Until now I was already quite active in the Data Mesh community online and through socials or other channels, but we’ve never had a community-driven conference with a focus on the topic and challenges of Data Mesh. So, when the organizers behind DDD Europe came to me and asked me if I would want to help them with such a conference, it was clear that I had to do this. In some way it is the extension of the Data Mesh Belgium meetups I have organised since the beginning of 2023 (already at the 4th edition).

What’s your ambition with Data Mesh Live? What would you like Data Mesh Live to become?

Data Mesh Live has the ambition to be the in-person Data Mesh conference each year that is driven by the community, for the community.

Compared to more established data conferences, Data Mesh Live has the opportunity to explore specific Data Mesh topics deeply and to help those on their data mesh journey.