Tag Archives: Silver Layer

From SCD2 Bronze to a Non-SCD Silver Layer in Other Tech (Iceberg, Hudi, BigQuery, Fabric)

Modern data platforms consistently separate historical truth from analytical usability by storing full SCD2 history in a Bronze layer and exposing a simplified, current-state Silver layer. Whether using Apache Iceberg, Apache Hudi, Google BigQuery, or Microsoft Fabric, the same pattern applies: Bronze preserves immutable, auditable change history, while Silver removes temporal complexity to deliver one row per business entity. Each platform implements this differently, via snapshots, incremental queries, QUALIFY, or Delta MERGE, but the architectural principle remains universal and essential for regulated environments.

Continue reading

From SCD2 Bronze to a Non-SCD Silver Layer in Snowflake

This article explains a best-practice Snowflake pattern for transforming an SCD2 Bronze layer into a non-SCD Silver layer that exposes clean, current-state data. By retaining full historical truth in Bronze and using Streams, Tasks, and incremental MERGE logic, organisations can efficiently materialise one-row-per-entity Silver tables optimised for analytics. The approach simplifies governance, reduces cost, and delivers predictable performance for BI, ML, and regulatory reporting, while preserving complete auditability required in highly regulated financial services environments.

Continue reading

From SCD2 Bronze to a Non-SCD Silver Layer in Databricks

This article explains a best-practice Databricks lakehouse pattern for transforming fully historical SCD2 Bronze data into clean, non-SCD Silver tables. Bronze preserves complete temporal truth for audit, compliance, and investigation, while Silver exposes simplified, current-state views optimised for analytics and data products. Using Delta Lake features such as MERGE, Change Data Feed, OPTIMIZE, and ZORDER, organisations, particularly in regulated Financial Services, can efficiently maintain audit-proof history while delivering fast, intuitive, consumption-ready datasets.

Continue reading

Using SCD2 in the Bronze Layer with a Non-SCD2 Silver Layer: A Modern Data Architecture Pattern for UK Financial Services

UK Financial Services firms increasingly implement SCD2 history in the Bronze layer while providing simplified, non-SCD2 current-state views in the Silver layer. This pattern preserves full historical auditability for FCA/PRA compliance and regulatory forensics, while delivering cleaner, faster, easier-to-use datasets for analytics, BI, and data science. It separates “truth” from “insight,” improves governance, supports Data Mesh models, reduces duplicated logic, and enables deterministic rebuilds across the lakehouse. In regulated UK Financial Services today, it is the only pattern I have seen that satisfies the full, real-world constraint set with no material trade-offs.

Continue reading