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Data Platforms on Azure: A Reference Architecture

Modern data platforms combine multiple services for ingestion, storage, processing, and serving. Here's a reference architecture that scales.

The Medallion Architecture

Bronze: Raw data, as ingested Silver: Cleaned and conformed Gold: Business-ready aggregates

Key Services

  • ADLS Gen2 - Scalable storage
  • Synapse Analytics - Unified analytics
  • Databricks - Spark processing
  • Purview - Data governance

Data Lakehouse

Combine data lake flexibility with warehouse reliability:

CREATE TABLE orders
USING DELTA
LOCATION 'abfss://container@account.dfs.core.windows.net/orders'

Real-time and Batch

The same architecture handles both:

  • Stream ingestion with Event Hubs
  • Batch processing with Spark
  • Unified serving layer