anatomy of data

A reference manual for how data works, where it came from and where it is going.
Written and illustrated by Silicon.

THE ATLAS

The Atlas.

Every part of data, one at a time. Each entry gives the thing in one sentence, an everyday picture of it, where it came from and who started it, how it works, what's inside it, where you'll meet it, and what it gets mixed up with.

0 OF 81 ENTRIES · 8 SYSTEMS

01

Origins

0 / 11

How people kept data before machines: marks, tokens, tablets, cords, books and counts.

  1. DataOUT DEC 1
  2. Tally marksOUT DEC 1
  3. Clay tokensOUT DEC 1
  4. Cuneiform accountsOUT DEC 1
  5. Khipu, the knotted cordsOUT DEC 1
  6. The ledger and double entryOUT DEC 1
  7. The survey: Domesday BookOUT DEC 1
  8. The censusOUT DEC 1
  9. The punched cardOUT DEC 1
  10. The tabulatorOUT DEC 1
  11. The card catalogOUT DEC 1
02

Storage

0 / 13

Where data physically sits, from paper to magnetism to light to charge.

  1. The bitOUT DEC 1
  2. The byteOUT DEC 1
  3. The recordOUT DEC 1
  4. The magnetic drumOUT DEC 1
  5. Magnetic tapeOUT DEC 1
  6. The hard diskOUT DEC 1
  7. Sequential and random accessOUT DEC 1
  8. The floppy diskOUT DEC 1
  9. The optical discOUT DEC 1
  10. Flash memory and SSDsOUT DEC 1
  11. Files and foldersOUT DEC 1
  12. Object storageOUT DEC 1
  13. Backups and copiesOUT DEC 1
03

Databases

0 / 12

Software that keeps records, finds them fast and keeps them consistent.

  1. The databaseOUT DEC 8
  2. The navigational databaseOUT DEC 8
  3. Tables, rows and columnsOUT DEC 8
  4. The schemaOUT DEC 8
  5. KeysOUT DEC 8
  6. IndexesOUT DEC 8
  7. TransactionsOUT DEC 8
  8. SQLOUT DEC 8
  9. The relational modelOUT DEC 8
  10. The query optimizerOUT DEC 8
  11. OLTPOUT DEC 8
  12. NoSQLOUT DEC 8
04

Moving data

0 / 8

How data gets from where it's made to where it's used.

  1. APIsOUT JAN 26
  2. Events and logsOUT JAN 26
  3. ETLOUT JAN 26
  4. ELTOUT JAN 26
  5. Change data captureOUT JAN 26
  6. Batch and streamingOUT JAN 26
  7. Message queues and KafkaOUT JAN 26
  8. OrchestrationOUT JAN 26
05

Analytics

0 / 11

Arranging data so questions are easy, and turning answers into numbers people trust.

  1. AggregationOUT DEC 22
  2. The data warehouseOUT DEC 22
  3. The data martOUT DEC 22
  4. The star schemaOUT DEC 22
  5. Fact tablesOUT DEC 22
  6. DimensionsOUT DEC 22
  7. The OLAP cubeOUT DEC 22
  8. Business intelligenceOUT DEC 22
  9. MetricsOUT DEC 22
  10. The semantic layerOUT DEC 22
  11. DashboardsOUT DEC 22
06

Scale

0 / 13

What changes when data no longer fits on one machine.

  1. Big dataOUT JAN 5
  2. The clusterOUT JAN 5
  3. Distributed file systemsOUT JAN 5
  4. MapReduceOUT JAN 5
  5. HadoopOUT JAN 5
  6. SparkOUT JAN 5
  7. Column storesOUT JAN 5
  8. ParquetOUT JAN 5
  9. The data lakeOUT JAN 5
  10. Table formatsOUT JAN 5
  11. The lakehouseOUT JAN 5
  12. The cloudOUT JAN 5
  13. Separating storage and computeOUT JAN 5
07

Trust

0 / 7

Knowing what data means, where it came from, whether it's right, and who may use it.

  1. MetadataOUT FEB 9
  2. The data catalogOUT FEB 9
  3. LineageOUT FEB 9
  4. Data qualityOUT FEB 9
  5. Data contractsOUT FEB 9
  6. Personal dataOUT FEB 9
  7. GDPR and privacy lawOUT FEB 9
08

AI

0 / 6

How data teaches machines, and how machines now read data back.

  1. Training dataOUT FEB 16
  2. LabelsOUT FEB 16
  3. EmbeddingsOUT FEB 16
  4. Vector databasesOUT FEB 16
  5. Retrieval-augmented generationOUT FEB 16
  6. AI agents that use dataOUT FEB 16