Expert Panel: The Great Data Stack Reset: New Architectures, New Priorities in 2026
Webinar Speaker: Donald Farmer, Research Fellow
Date: Tuesday, March 10, 2026
Time: 9:00 a.m. PT / 12:00 p.m. ET
The assumptions that governed how enterprises built their data architectures over the past decade are under strain. AI workloads demand low-latency access to governed, high-quality data; real-time analytics requires infrastructure that can keep pace with operational decision-making; and cloud economics have shifted from "lift and shift" savings to hard questions about where processing should live and what it should cost. At the same time, accumulated complexity across hybrid and multicloud environments has made many existing stacks brittle, expensive, and poorly suited to the demands now being placed on them.
The result is a broad architectural reckoning. Data leaders are consolidating platforms, rethinking how storage and compute are allocated, and reassessing which layers of the stack deliver genuine value versus inherited overhead. Governance, once treated as a constraint layered on after the fact, has become a design consideration from the outset, particularly as AI systems require traceable, trustworthy data pipelines.
Join TDWI research fellow Donald Farmer and industry experts from Reltio as they examine how organizations are redesigning their data architectures to meet 2026 realities. Drawing on practitioner experience and current research, this session explores the trade-offs, priorities, and practical strategies that data leaders face as they move from legacy stacks toward architectures built for AI, analytics, and operational agility. Topics include:
- How cost pressures and AI readiness are accelerating the consolidation of fragmented data architectures
- The shifting economics of cloud data platforms and what they mean for infrastructure strategy
- Where governance fits in a redesigned stack, and why retrofitting it no longer works
- Balancing flexibility against performance when choosing between lakehouse, warehouse, and composable approaches
- Practical lessons from organizations that have moved beyond incremental modernization to full architectural redesign
Whether you are a data leader wrestling with rising platform costs, an architect evaluating how to position your stack for AI workloads, or a practitioner trying to simplify an environment that has grown unwieldy, this panel offers grounded perspectives on the choices ahead.
Date: March 10, 2026
Time: 9:00 am PT
Donald Farmer