In the world of data architecture there are a couple different roles identified that are often confused. The information architect and the data architect have been used interchangeably in the industry to solve similar problems. These two areas of architecture serve very different purposes for the enterprise. Seth Early, an information consultant defines Data Architects as being focused with structured data and technical aspects of applications and database design. Data architecture in it’s purest form, managing and designing the structure of data for enterprises consumption and integration.
Information architecture in contrast focuses on the meaning of the data and how that meaning is used. In the same blog by Seth Early, information architecture is defined as being concerned with how structured and unstructured data are combined to meet user experience. These definitions don’t seem to simply explain the difference.
Another way that I have seen these two explained although I cannot remember the source, was that data architecture concerns itself with data, less context whereas information architecture is concerned the contextual elements of the data and how those contexts are applied to form the user experience. In an organization often the job of an information architect is not clear. This is likely because the need for the position is something expected in the UX/UI development position, however with the increase trend in the data sciences, contextual information is becoming more important. The application of context to unstructured data and structured data aligns with the big data movement, the integration and compilation of data more important.
Data architecture is also a changing profession due to the pervasive nature of the cloud. This same paradigm shift that is affecting the work of an information architect also effects the data architect. The pervasiveness of the cloud has shift the need for managing data’s infrastructure to managing logical infrastructure in the cloud. The structure of data is now the limiting factor rather than hardware. Looking forward I would guess the roles, while different today, will converge in time.
Views: 1
