Medallion architecture: bronze, silver, and gold

 A layered data organization system:

• Bronze: Raw, unprocessed data as it arrives from source systems. Preserves original state for auditing and reprocessing.
• Silver: Cleaned, deduplicated, and standardized data. Conforms to consistent naming and formatting conventions across the organization.
• Gold: Business-ready, curated datasets optimized for analytics and reporting. This is where data becomes actionable for business users.

This three-tier structure moves data from its raw form through progressive refinement, improving quality and usability at each stage.

See related TWOTW: ETL - extract, translate, load

Sources:

• Medallion Architecture: Bronze, Silver & Gold Layers Explained (2026 Guide)
• Data Lake Zones: Bronze, Silver, Gold Architecture | Conduktor
• Understanding the Three Layers of Medallion Architecture