Traditional data platforms
Before we get into architecting data platforms in a modern way, it is important to understand the traditional data platforms and know their strengths and limitations. Once we understand the challenges of traditional data platforms in solving new business use cases, we can design a modern data platform in a holistic matter.
Three-tier architecture
Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the three-tier architecture became a popular way of producing, processing, and storing data. Almost every organization used this pattern as it met the business needs with ease. The three tiers of this architecture were the presentation tier, the application tier, and the data tier:
- The presentation tier was the front-facing module and was created either as a thick client – that is, software was installed on the client’s local machine – or as a thin client – that is, a browser-based application.
- The application tier would receive the data...
