Your Launchpad questions, answered

Most organisations know they need a modern data platform. The ambition is real. But the gap between deciding to build and having something working is wide, expensive, and slow. Projects drag on for twelve months or more, budgets overrun, and the early wins that justify the investment never arrive.

Launchpad is Ignition's answer to that problem: a fixed-timeline delivery framework that gets a governed data foundation operational in weeks, not months. Below are the questions teams ask us most often, answered.

What exactly is Launchpad?

Launchpad is a proven delivery framework for building modern cloud-native data platforms. It is a structured, repeatable approach, not a product you buy off the shelf. It combines Medallion Architecture, a structured integration methodology, and AI-ready data mart patterns, all delivered with senior hands-on expertise embedded throughout the engagement.

The core idea is simple: deliver only what is needed to reach the next piece of business value, and nothing more. Rather than front-loading a complete platform build, Launchpad sequences delivery around outcomes, so visible results arrive early.

Why do so many data platform projects stall before they start?

The pattern is consistent. Teams face too many choices and no clear starting point, legacy complexity that resists change, skill gaps with slow retraining cycles, and consulting that never quite embeds capability. On top of that, AI ambitions get blocked by poor data foundations, and the whole effort drifts toward high cost, unclear ROI, and lost confidence.

The culprit underneath almost all of this is the same: a Silver layer that no one knows how to build efficiently at scale. Launchpad is designed to remove that blocker directly.

How fast is Launchpad, really?

The first phase is an eight-week engagement that delivers a working, governed data foundation and a first business use case live. That is often before comparable organisations have finished their architecture workshops.

The speed comes from automation rather than shortcuts. With IRiS, a data engineer can create a model and generate code in under 15 minutes, work that would usually take at least four hours by hand. That is more than a 10x improvement on the modelling and code generation step alone. Across a Launchpad engagement, where the alternative is designing every framework from scratch, that same order of efficiency carries through to the deployment artefacts.

Which platforms does it work on?

Launchpad is technology-agnostic. It works across Microsoft Fabric, Snowflake, and Databricks, adapting to your existing tools and vendor relationships. Each engagement is tailored to the native capabilities of your chosen platform, delivered with platform-specific accelerators and tooling, while keeping the same framework and the same outcomes regardless of platform.

Launchpad leverages the native capabilities of the cloud data platforms and where required, IRiS, dbt or other third party tools are supported as part of the toolchain.

How is the work structured?

Launchpad runs in three phases, and each one delivers a usable outcome. You can stop after any phase, or keep building on the governed foundation you have established.

The first phase, Start, delivers a working outcome fast to build momentum and confidence. It identifies the first high-value use case, establishes a shared data language and governance foundations, and stands up ingestion, Bronze, and the initial Silver layer structures, with CI/CD and documentation standards in place from day one.

The second phase, Build, expands with governed, repeatable patterns that reduce risk at scale. It implements a scalable Lakehouse architecture across business domains, applies reusable design patterns so you code once and reuse everywhere, migrates and integrates legacy warehouse data, and embeds coaching alongside delivery. This is also where Silver layer generation is automated via IRiS tooling.

The third phase, Grow, scales confidently and enables self-service, AI, and enterprise analytics. It adds new data domains and business teams without rework, enables self-service analytics on governed data products, and supports ML and generative AI with AI-ready Gold layer data marts.

How is governance handled?

Governance is embedded from day one, not bolted on at the end. Launchpad builds in metadata-driven lineage, structural auditability, and integration with the native governance tooling of your platform, including Microsoft Purview, Databricks Unity Catalog, and Snowflake Horizon. The result is a platform where data transparency and accountability are part of the foundation, and AI-readiness is structural rather than an afterthought.

Will this leave my team dependent on consultants?

No. Launchpad is delivered through co-delivery, not black-box consulting. Your team works alongside ours throughout the engagement, and training, handover, and complete documentation are standard. The goal is to leave your people more capable than we found them.

What is IRiS, and how does it fit in?

IRiS is Ignition's Lakehouse Code Automation platform, available on the Microsoft Azure Marketplace. It accelerates Silver layer delivery by automating code generation from source metadata, reducing manual effort, enforcing consistency, and producing governed output from the first run. Under the hood, IRiS uses DV2 methodology to structure the integration layer, with guardrails that enforce standards automatically every time.

The IRiS Assistant guides teams through modelling and design in plain language, capturing conceptual structure and generating the metadata files that drive automated code generation. IRiS is MACC-eligible and IP Co-sell Eligible, and supports Microsoft Fabric, Snowflake, and Databricks.

Who is Launchpad for?

Launchpad is built for organisations that need a low-risk, fast start to Lakehouse delivery, want early wins to build momentum and internal buy-in, are moving to the cloud or modernising legacy platforms, and need to bridge urgent insight needs with long-term strategy. It is calibrated for mid-market organisations establishing cloud-native foundations and want to move fast without creating technical debt.

What proof do you have that this works?

RESIMAC, one of Australia's largest non-bank lenders, is the clearest example. As their data volumes grew, their team faced slow, manual Silver layer delivery that could not keep pace with business demand. Ignition deployed Launchpad on Microsoft Azure and Snowflake with the IRiS automation platform. Objects that previously required days of manual effort were generated in minutes, consistently governed and audit-ready, with zero technical debt.

Why Ignition?

We have delivered trusted data platforms across Australia and New Zealand since 2003, across the Certus and Ignition entities, which is more than twenty years of delivery history. We are APAC's only Data Vault Alliance Authorised Training Organisation, one of only three globally, which means our practitioners are certified to teach the methodology, not just use it. We are a Microsoft Solutions Partner for Data and AI, a Snowflake Select Partner, and a Databricks Consulting Service Partner. And because we work through co-delivery, capability uplift is built into every engagement.