The Importance of Speed and Simplicity in Microservice Architecture

Ole Olesen-Bagneux In every enterprise, says Ole Olesen-Bagneux, the information you need to understand your organization's metadata is already there. It just needs to be discovered and documented. Ole's Meta Grid can be as simple as a shared, curated collection of documents, diagrams, and data but might also be expressed as a knowledge graph. Ole appreciates "North Star" architectures like microservices and the Data Mesh but presents the Meta Grid as a simpler way to manage enterprise metadata. We talked about: his work as Chief Evangelist at Actian his forthcoming book, "Fundamentals of Metadata Management" how he defines his Meta Grid: an integration architecture that connects metadata across metadata repositories his definition of metadata and its key characteristic, that it's always in two places at once how the Meta Grid compares with microservices architectures and organizing concepts like Data Mesh the nature of the Meta Grid as a small, simple, and slow architecture which is not technically difficult to achieve his assertion that you can't build a Meta Grid because it already exists in every organization the elements of the Meta Grid: documents, diagrams or pictures, and examples of data how knowledge graphs fit into the Meta Grid his appreciation for "North Star" architectures like Data Mesh but also how he sees the Meta Grid as a more pragmatic approach to enterprise metadata management the evolution of his new book from a knowledge graph book to his elaboration on the "slow" nature of the Meta Grid, in particular how its metadata focus contrasts with faster real-time systems like ERPs the shape of the team topology that makes Meta Grid work Ole's bio Ole Olesen-Bagneux is a globally recognized thought leader in metadata management and enterprise data architecture. As VP, Chief Evangelist at Actian, he drives industry awareness and adoption of modern approaches to data intelligence, drawing on his extensive expertise in data management, metadata, data catalogs, and decentralized architectures. An accomplished author, Ole has written The Enterprise Data Catalog (O’Reilly, 2023). He is currently working on Fundamentals of Metadata Management (O’Reilly, 2025), introducing a novel metadata architecture known as the Meta Grid. With a PhD in Library and Information Science from the University of Copenhagen, his unique perspective bridges traditional information science with modern data management. Before joining Actian, Ole served as Chief Evangelist at Zeenea, where he played a key role in shaping and communicating the company’s technology vision. His industry experience includes leadership roles in enterprise architecture and data strategy at major pharmaceutical companies like Novo Nordisk.Ole is passionate about scalable metadata architectures, knowledge graphs, and enabling organizations to make data truly discoverable and usable. Connect with Ole online LinkedIn Substack Medium Resources mentioned in this interview Fundamentals of Metadata Management, Ole's forthcoming book Data Management at Scale by Piethein Strengholt Fundamentals of Data Engineering by Joe Reis and Matt Housley Meta Grid as a Team Topology, Substack article Stewart Brand's Pace Layers Video Here’s the video version of our conversation: https://youtu.be/t01IZoegKRI Podcast intro transcript This is the Knowledge Graph Insights podcast, episode number 28. Every modern enterprise wrestles with the scale, the complexity, and the urgency of understanding their data and metadata. So, by necessity, comprehensive architectural approaches like microservices and the data mesh are complex, big, and fast. Ole Olesen-Bagneux proposes a simple, small, and slow way for enterprises to cultivate a shared understanding of their enterprise knowledge, a decentralized approach to metadata strategy that he calls the Meta Grid. Interview transcript Larry: Hi, everyone. Welcome to episode number 28 of the Knowledge Graph Insights podcast. I am really delighted today to welcome to the show Ole Olesen-Bagneux. Ole is the... He's currently the chief evangelist at Actian. Welcome, Ole. Tell the folks a little bit more about your role at Actian and what you do there. Ole: Thank you, Larry. Thank you for having me on. This is a great topic that we will dive in today. First of all, I recently joined Actian, so it's been my first week since we've recorded this. I am the chief evangelist in Actian, so I will be telling the story of Actian as this technology evolves. Actian is a data platform, it's based in the US and it is part of the HCL software family. Actian is a data platform, and as this data platform changes and evolves over time, I'll be telling that story. That's really what I'll be doing. Larry: What a fun job, evangelizing a technology platform. Yeah. I love that kind of work. You're also working on a book called Fundamentals of Metadata Management, which is all about the Meta Grid concept that you came up with, and that's what I really want to talk about today. How's the book going? It's due for publication this year, correct? Ole: That is correct. I finalized the first draft version of the manuscript a couple of weeks ago. I am very confident that I will publish it on time. Maybe a little earlier than the current publication date, that I don't know, but it's coming along nicely. It's been a difficult book to write. It's the sum of my experience as a leader and an enterprise architect working closely with all things data for the last 10, 15 years. 10 years. Larry: Nice. Sort of a encapsulation. Well, it's an intriguing idea, and I love the... We were talking before we went on the air about how much I love a good framework, and is that the right way to think about it? I guess, how would you define the Meta Grid? Ole: The Meta Grid, as I see it, is first and foremost an architecture, an integration architecture between distinct types of technologies that do not perform the value chain of a company such as ERP systems and CRM systems and what have you. Neither is it focused at the analytical plane, so to say, the data mesh universe where you're trying to discuss how centralized or decentralized should your analytical data technologies be at data warehouses, data lakes, and the like. The Meta Grid really is about these small, small technologies that depict the IT landscape, the information security management system, the data catalog, the endpoint management system, the knowledge management system, all these systems that for distinct purposes depict the IT landscape. A short definition of the Meta Grid is that it is an integration architecture that connects metadata across metadata repositories. Larry: Nice. That connects across repositories, and that's one of the key things about the Meta Grid is that your conception of metadata differs... Well, you come out of a library science background, isn't that right? Ole: That is right. Larry: I've learned most of what I know about metadata from my librarian friends, but I've also... I think I've fallen into the not trap or a different way of thinking about it than you do this notion of just thinking about the kinds of metadata, descriptive metadata, administrative, tech, all those kinds. You have a different take on metadata. I'd love to hear how you think of it? Ole: You bet. Yes. Well, first of all, let me emphasize that I don't think the way you think of metadata is wrong. That's quite important for me. But what I see lacking in that thinking, for example, in the Data Management Body of Knowledge, the DAMA-DMBOK or other resources, vital resources in this field is that if you do that subcategorization of metadata into operational, technical, business, social, what have you, then you discuss subcategories instead of the actual nature of metadata. What I've come to find in my work life is that this perspective gives you some blind spots to something that is very, very important in metadata. How I define metadata is not in terms of its subcategories. I don't think you can do that actually for metadata. I try to find the very nature of metadata in my definition of it, and that is that it is not anything in particular, but that it is always in two places at once. Ole: That's the key to metadata. It'll be in a repository and it will be at source, just like a book has its information, its metadata in the book itself and on Amazon. Just like the data in a data catalog is listed in the data catalog and in the data sources of that particularly data source that you have scanned. Metadata is in two places at once, and that definition unfolds the idea of the Meta Grid because once you have established this definition, you can also look at this definition as a problem because what it creates, and you can see that at every single company in the world, is that you have a lot of different metadata repositories listing the same type of metadata. That's the problem that the Meta Grid addresses, that all these small activities in all these small teams are taking place in isolation. Larry: Is that the classic silo issue in enterprise architectures? Ole: It's definitely the classic silo issue in enterprise architecture just for a very distinct purpose. I feel very, very connected to everything, team topologies, everything data mesh, microservices. These ideas of thinking of how to break up monolithic thinking and monolithic technology practices is something that is very, very close to... Well, to my heart and my mind. Larry: That close to mine as well. I help organize a conference called Decoupled Days, it's all about microservices and decoupled architectures, but I love that you... But one of your... I read a bunch of stuff preparing for this, but you did this one blog post where you had a table that compares the microservices architectures, the data mesh,