Overview - ISO/IEC TR 20547-1:2020 and the Big Data Reference Architecture
ISO/IEC TR 20547-1:2020 defines a big data reference architecture (BDRA) framework and an explicit application process for mapping real-world big data problem domains to that architecture. The Technical Report is the first part of the ISO/IEC 20547 series and complements ISO/IEC 20546 (big data vocabulary). It helps organizations describe, compare and communicate big data systems consistently - covering stakeholders, concerns, architectural views and the steps to apply the BDRA to specific use cases.
Key topics and technical requirements
- Framework and structure: concepts of reference architectures and how to organize views (user, functional) and components for big data systems.
- Stakeholders and concerns: guidance for identifying actors (roles/subroles) and capturing their concerns (security, privacy, provenance, governance, etc.).
- Architectural views: definition of the user view and functional view to describe requirements and capabilities.
- Application process: step‑by‑step procedure to apply the BDRA:
- identify stakeholders and concerns,
- map to roles and subroles,
- develop activity descriptions and map to concerns,
- define functional components to implement activities,
- crosswalk activities/components back to concerns for validation.
- Data governance and quality: emphasis on metadata, provenance and controls needed to manage liability, compliance and data veracity.
- Security and privacy: integration of confidentiality, integrity, availability and accountability into architectural mappings.
- Interoperability and deployment models: considerations for distributed, federated and remote analytics (taking analytics to the data), and interactions between SQL/NoSQL and various data formats (JSON, XML, RDF).
Practical applications - who should use this standard
- Enterprise architects and solution designers mapping big data solutions to a vendor‑agnostic reference model.
- Project managers and system integrators planning functional components, roles and activities for big data implementations.
- Security, privacy and governance teams defining controls, provenance and compliance mappings.
- Vendors and service providers aligning products and offerings (platforms, analytics, storage, orchestration) to a common vocabulary.
- Researchers and standards developers seeking a structured process for big data architecture evaluation and comparison.
Related standards
- ISO/IEC 20546 - Big data vocabulary and definitions (complements Part 1).
- ISO/IEC/IEEE 42010 - Systems and software engineering - architecture description (normative reference).
- Additional references in the report: ISO/TR 14639, ISO/IEC 15288, and other ISO/IEC guidance on metadata, provenance and quality.
Using ISO/IEC TR 20547-1:2020 helps organizations build clearer, interoperable and auditable big data architectures, improving communication with vendors and reducing risk in large-scale data projects.