IBM watsonx.data is here

What does it mean for Data Management?

An open, hybrid and governed data store

Watsonx is IBM’s next-generation AI platform, made up of three components: watsonx.ai, watsonx.data and watsonx.governance.

Watsonx.data makes it possible for enterprises to scale analytics and AI with a fit-for-purpose data store, built on an open lakehouse architecture, supported by querying, governance and open data formats to access and share data. With watsonx.data, you can connect to data in minutes, quickly get trusted insights and reduce your data warehouse costs.

A new phase for IBM’s data management offering

Watsonx.data is a package of open-source technology that IBM have integrated to work together and in which they plan to embed a lot of their AI technology.

This signals a new phase for IBM’s data management offering. It’s a move away from traditional data warehouse implementation towards a modern data lake architecture which allows for multiple layers of increasing value of data and applying analytics tools to those layers.

In addition, watsonx.data supports a medallion architecture which removes silos and ensures the right data is available to everyone in the organisation without sacrificing security.

Data Vault Aligned

The main reason we’re excited about watsonx.data is that its lakehouse architecture aligns very well with Data Vault – the data warehousing methodology we recommend. Data Vault 2.0 has a Landing zone, Raw & Business Vault and Information Mart for user access, which all aligns nicely with the medallion architecture (bronze, silver, gold) of the watsonx.data lakehouse architecture.

Secure Meets Modern

IBM are the provider of choice for organisations dealing with highly governed and important information. The IBM platform is known to be reliable and secure. With the release of watsonx, IBM are building on this by embracing a modern best practice cloud data platform approach. The more flexible architecture, combined with IBM's focus on security, makes it an interesting option for modern organisations.

IBM Platform Expansion

Watsonx.data, together with watsonx.ai and watsonx.governance, is an expansion of the trusted IBM platform and tools. Organisation who already leverage IBM solutions now have the opportunity to build on this by adding watsonx.data as a modern information architecture – instead of having to look for another provider – knowing that watsonx.data will integrate well with their existing IBM tools.

AI opportunities

Another exciting aspect of watsonx.data is the possibility to leverage AI to make it an even more powerful data management platform in the future. IBM has repeatedly been recognised as a leader in Enterprise Conversational AI Platforms by Gartner and others. It will be interesting to see how they integrate their AI expertise with watsonx.data over time.