The Medallion Architecture in Azure Synapse Analytics

Businesses are generating and handling data at an unprecedented rate. From customer transactions to market insights, the sheer volume of information can be overwhelming. This is where Azure Synapse Analytics steps in, offering a unified platform for managing big data and analytics tasks seamlessly. At the heart of this platform lie the Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) layers—Bronze, Silver, and Gold—each  designed to address specific storage and performance needs.  Let’s break down each layer to know the capabilities of ADLS layers:

1. Bronze layer (raw data)

• Imagine a retail company that ingests data from various sources, such as point-of-sale systems, online orders, and customer interactions.

• In the bronze layer, you’d find raw CSV files, JSON logs, or database dumps containing unprocessed data.

• Example data:

  • Raw sales transactions with timestamps, product IDs, and quantities.

  • Customer reviews with unstructured text.

  • Clickstream data from the company’s website.

2. Silver layer (cleansed and conformed data)

While the bronze layer contains the entire data history in a nearly raw state, the silver layer represents a validated, enriched version of our data that can be trusted for downstream analytics. Data stored in the Silver layer is optimized for read-heavy workloads with moderate performance requirements.

• Silver tables might include:

  • Cleaned sales transactions.

  • Aggregated customer behavior metrics.

3. Gold layer (curated business-level tables)

This gold data is often highly refined and aggregated, containing data that powers analytics, machine learning, and production applications. While all tables in the lakehouse should serve an important purpose, gold tables represent data that has been transformed into knowledge, rather than just information.

Analysts largely rely on gold tables for their core responsibilities, and data shared with a customer would rarely be stored outside of this level.

 Gold tables might include:

• Sales Summary: Aggregated sales by product category, region, and time period.

•  Sales Forecasting Table 

In summary, the Medallion Architecture in Azure Synapse Analytics helps manage and improve data workflows by organizing data into bronze, silver, and gold layers. This setup ensures better data quality and performance. Using this method makes it easier to handle large amounts of data, process it efficiently, and gain valuable insights. By adopting the Medallion Architecture, businesses can better use their data to make smart decisions and drive innovation.  

For expert data solutions tailored to your business, contact us at Numlytics. Transform your data into actionable insights!