The “Impedance Mismatch Test”: Is Your Data Platform Simple or a Complex Mess?

The text discusses the concept of "impedance mismatch" in data pipelines, which refers to the discrepancy between the data format, schema and protocol used by different systems. This can lead to increased complexity and overhead in managing and maintaining a data layer. To measure this complexity, an "Impedance Mismatch Score" (IMS) is introduced, which calculates the transformational and pipeline overheads associated with each system. By comparing IMS scores for various architectures, one can determine the simplest and most efficient solution for their specific use case. The text also provides a simple spreadsheet-based calculator to help users compute IMS scores for different data pipelines.