Project Name
Enterprise Data Lakehouse and Governance Platform
As an AI-first company, Ksolves solves enterprise data complexity by building platforms that are governed, federated, and ready for intelligence from the ground up.
A UAE government regulatory authority responsible for compliance reporting and revenue administration across multiple operating entities approached Ksolves with a fundamental data problem. Critical financial, operational, and compliance data were fragmented across ERP, CRM, IoT, and financial systems, with no unified access layer, no governance framework, and no data science capability. For a regulated authority where data accuracy and auditability are legal obligations, this fragmentation posed both operational and compliance risks.
The authority needed a turnkey, on-premises platform that could unify data access, enforce governance, establish clean master data, and enable AI without cloud dependency or vendor lock-in. Ksolves designed and delivered a fully integrated Data Platform (IDP) that combines a Starburst-powered federated Data Lakehouse, Ataccama ONE for governance and MDM, and KNIME for AI and data science, all deployed within UAE infrastructure.
The challenges faced by the client are as follows:
- Enterprise-Wide Data Fragmentation With No Unified Access: Financial, compliance, and operational data were spread across ERP, CRM, IoT, and financial systems. Every cross-system query required manual extraction and hours of IT involvement before any analysis could begin.
- No Governance, Catalog, or Lineage Framework: The authority had no governed data catalog, no business glossary, no defined Critical Data Elements, and no metadata lineage. For a regulatory body where auditability is a legal requirement, this created significant compliance exposure.
- No Master Data Management and Duplicate Records: Citizen, entity, and supplier records existed across multiple source systems with no deduplication or golden record mechanism, directly undermining the accuracy of assessments and regulatory submissions.
- No Data Quality Controls or Monitoring: Data quality was entirely unmanaged. There were no automated quality checks, anomaly detection, or alerting. Every issue was discovered reactively, after it had already affected reports or compliance outputs.
- No AI or Analytics Platform: A pipeline of high-priority AI use cases was structurally blocked due to a lack of a unified data foundation, governed training data, and a data science environment.
- Vendor Lock-in and Cloud Dependency Risk: The existing technology landscape lacked an open-architecture strategy, creating long-term lock-in risk. The authority required full UAE data sovereignty with no dependency on any single cloud provider.
Ksolves engineered a modular, on-premises Enterprise Data Platform built on open-source-first principles, addressing every layer of the authority's data challenge in a single delivery.
- Federated Data Lakehouse via Starburst (Trino): Starburst was deployed as the central data access layer, enabling federated SQL queries across all enterprise source systems through 50+ connectors without moving data from its source. This delivers 3x faster time to insight at half the cost of comparable cloud alternatives, with no ETL pipelines required to start querying.
- On-Premises NVMe Object Storage: A scale-out NAS object storage cluster was deployed as the Data Lakehouse backbone, using open table formats (Apache Iceberg, Parquet, ORC) to ensure complete data portability and zero vendor lock-in on stored assets. UAE data residency was fully maintained with a 4-hour onsite SLA.
- Ataccama ONE for Governance, Quality, and Observability: Ataccama ONE was deployed as the authority's first complete governance platform, covering configurable data quality rules with AI anomaly detection, a governed data catalog with full metadata lineage, continuous observability with schema and freshness alerting, and a structured business glossary with ownership definitions.
- Ataccama MDM for Golden Records: MDM was configured for the authority's highest-priority master data domains, including citizen and entity identity and supplier records. Deterministic and fuzzy matching rules, survivorship logic, and golden-record publishing via API ensured that every downstream system operated from a single, de-duplicated, trusted record.
- KNIME Analytics Platform and Server for AI: KNIME was deployed as the authority's AI and data science environment, providing a drag-and-drop model-development interface for data scientists and citizen analysts, along with KNIME Server for automation, scheduling, team collaboration, and REST API deployment of analytical applications.
- Purpose-Built On-Premises Compute: The complete platform ran on a multi-node on-premises cluster, with dedicated workloads for the Data Lakehouse, Ataccama governance, and KNIME, managed via a Kubernetes-based Lakehouse System Software, with a full 3-year lifecycle SLA.
Technology Stack
| Layer | Technology | Role in the Platform |
|---|---|---|
| Query Engine | Starburst (Trino) | Federated SQL access across enterprise systems with 50+ connectors, RBAC, and materialized views. |
| Storage | On-Premises NVMe NAS | High-capacity object storage with inline deduplication, S3-compatible APIs, and support for open table formats. |
| Governance | Ataccama ONE | Unified platform for Data Quality, Data Catalog, Observability, Business Glossary, and MDM Golden Records. |
| AI / Data Science | KNIME Analytics + Server | Drag-and-drop ML workflow development, automation, and REST API deployment capabilities. |
| Integration | Apache Spark + Ataccama CDC | Real-time streaming ingestion and incremental change data capture across enterprise source systems. |
| Orchestration | Kubernetes | Independent service scaling, lifecycle management, and automated recovery across the platform. |
- Unified Federated Access Across All Enterprise Systems: Starburst-powered queries now provide real-time, unified SQL access across all enterprise source systems with no data movement required, delivering 3x faster time to insight at half the cost of comparable cloud alternatives.
- Complete Governance Framework Established: Ataccama ONE delivered the authority's first governed data estate, cataloging assets with full lineage, active quality rules, AI anomaly detection, continuous observability, and structured governance workflows, with defined Data Owner, Steward, and Manager roles.
- Golden Records for Entity and Supplier Domains: Ataccama MDM Golden Records are live for citizen, entity, and supplier domains, with matching, deduplication, and survivorship logic to ensure that every compliance assessment and regulatory submission is based on a single, trusted record.
- AI and Data Science Platform Operational: KNIME Analytics Platform and Server are integrated with the Data Lakehouse, giving data teams governed access to all connected data sources through a model development environment with automated REST API deployment from day one.
- On-Premises Data Sovereignty With Zero Vendor Lock-in: The complete platform runs on open table formats (Apache Iceberg, Parquet, ORC) with no proprietary storage dependencies, full UAE data residency, and hybrid cloud readiness for selective cloud extension without architectural rework.
“For the first time, our data teams have a governed, unified platform where records are consistent, quality rules are enforced automatically, and cross-system insights are available in real time, without waiting for IT to extract and reconcile data from multiple disconnected systems.”
— Senior Stakeholder, UAE Government Regulatory Authority (formal testimonial pending)
Before this engagement, a UAE government regulatory authority operated multiple enterprise systems without a unified data access framework, governance, master data management, or AI capabilities, creating compliance risks and limiting analytics initiatives. The organization required robust big-data consulting services to build a scalable, governed data foundation.
Ksolves delivered a complete on-premises Enterprise Data Platform that combines a Starburst-powered federated Data Lakehouse, Ataccama ONE governance and MDM, and KNIME AI, all within the UAE infrastructure, using open formats and ensuring full data sovereignty. Through our big data consulting services, the authority achieved unified data access, governance, and AI readiness on a single platform.
With a governed data foundation now in place, the authority can accelerate advanced analytics, predictive modeling, and AI-driven compliance initiatives using the same Ataccama-governed, KNIME-ready ecosystem powered by our big data consulting services.
Turn Your Fragmented Data Estate Into a Governed, AI-Ready Platform
