Medallion Architecture

In modern data engineering, organizing data pipelines in a scalable, reliable, and maintainable way is critical.
One of the most popular design patterns for this is the Medallion Architecture.

The Medallion Architecture structures data into three main layers:

• Bronze – Raw data
• Silver – Cleaned and enriched data
• Gold – Business-ready data

Each layer improves data quality and usability.

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🥉 Bronze Layer – Raw Data

Purpose: Store data exactly as it arrives.

Characteristics

• Raw, unprocessed data
• Multiple data sources (APIs, logs, databases, files, streams)
• May contain duplicates, missing values, and errors
• Schema can change over time

Goal

The Bronze layer acts as a data landing zone.
It keeps a full, immutable history of all incoming data.

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🥈 Silver Layer – Cleaned & Enriched Data

Purpose: Make data reliable and structured.

Common Transformations

• Remove duplicates
• Handle missing values
• Standardize formats (dates, currencies, text)
• Join related datasets
• Apply basic business rules

Goal

Provide trusted, structured data for analytics, ML, and downstream systems.

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🥇 Gold Layer – Business-Ready Data

Purpose: Support reporting and decision-making.

Characteristics

• Aggregated metrics and KPIs
• Business logic applied
• Optimized for BI tools (Power BI, Tableau, Looker)

Examples

• Daily sales by region
• Monthly revenue
• Customer lifetime value
• Marketing performance dashboards

Goal

Deliver high-quality, analytics-ready data for business users.

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