The Vertex Journal https://www.vertexjournal.com/ Independent reviews of data platforms: warehouses, lakehouses, pipelines, BI and governance, with explicit verdicts. en Sun, 04 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT The medallion architecture is a slide https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/the-medallion-architecture-is-a-slide/ https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/the-medallion-architecture-is-a-slide/ Sun, 04 Oct 2026 00:00:00 GMT Bronze, silver and gold describe a diagram, not a design. On the vocabulary that conquered data engineering without ever being specified. The editors The lakehouse wants the SIEM's storage bill https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/the-lakehouse-wants-the-siems-storage-bill/ https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/the-lakehouse-wants-the-siems-storage-bill/ Mon, 28 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Six security-log connectors shipped in one day. Databricks is bidding for the most expensive gigabytes in enterprise logging, and the connectors are the easy half. The editors Arrow won by disappearing https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/arrow-won-by-disappearing/ https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/arrow-won-by-disappearing/ Sun, 27 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT The interchange layer no vendor advertises and every engine ships. A note on the standard that succeeded by becoming boring. The editors The warehouse pricing models, reviewed as designs https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/warehouse-pricing-models-reviewed/ https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/warehouse-pricing-models-reviewed/ Sun, 13 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT Per-credit, per-slot, per-TB and serverless per-second are not four prices for one thing. They are four incentive systems, and each one trains your team differently. The editors Zero-ETL is ETL you stopped operating, not ETL that stopped existing https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/zero-etl-is-etl-you-stopped-operating/ https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/zero-etl-is-etl-you-stopped-operating/ Wed, 09 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT AWS defines zero-ETL as integrations that minimize the need to build pipelines. Minimize is the honest word in the sentence. A short review of what the prefix actually deletes, and what it renames. The editors Managed Iceberg, the S3 Tables verdict so far https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/s3-tables-early-verdict/ https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/s3-tables-early-verdict/ Sun, 06 Sep 2026 00:00:00 GMT AWS made the table format a bucket feature. What the managed layer actually buys, what it costs against running your own, and who should wait. The editors DuckDB, two years into 1.x: the re-verdict https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/duckdb-two-years-into-1x/ https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/duckdb-two-years-into-1x/ Mon, 24 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT We called the single-node renaissance early. Time to check the review against what actually happened, which is the part of criticism most outlets skip. The editors A BI seat costs $12 or $115 now, when the vendor still sells one https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/what-a-bi-seat-costs-now/ https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/what-a-bi-seat-costs-now/ Thu, 20 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Power BI holds at $14, Tableau runs $75 to $115, Metabase undercuts both, and Qlik and Domo stopped pricing people entirely. The seat, reviewed. The editors Iceberg v3 outran the engines that read it https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/iceberg-v3-outran-its-readers/ https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/iceberg-v3-outran-its-readers/ Fri, 14 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Snowflake, Databricks and Dremio shipped Iceberg v3 GA this spring. Trino is partial, Athena and BigQuery still read v2. The interop math, reviewed. The editors The four dashboards every data team builds, reviewed as a genre https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/the-four-dashboards/ https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/the-four-dashboards/ Mon, 10 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT The executive mosaic, the wall of red, the vanity grid and the one that works. A taxonomy, with verdicts, of the artifacts BI budgets actually produce. The editors Open Semantic Interchange became Apache Ossie: fifty logos, one YAML file, verdict pending https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/osi-fifty-logos-one-yaml/ https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/osi-fifty-logos-one-yaml/ Wed, 05 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT The semantic-layer interchange standard has a real spec, a real Apache incubator and a real gap between signing and shipping. We read the YAML so you can read the roadmaps. The editors DuckDB can write to an Iceberg catalog now, in an alpha https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/duckdb-writes-to-a-catalog-now/ https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/duckdb-writes-to-a-catalog-now/ Tue, 04 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT dbt Core's v2 alpha gives DuckDB read-write Horizon and Unity catalogs over Iceberg REST. Useful, checkable, and not yet something to put on a migration plan. The editors dbt Core stayed Apache 2.0, and that was the only question https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/dbt-license-reversal/ https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/dbt-license-reversal/ Mon, 03 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Fivetran and dbt Labs closed their merger the same day dbt Core v2 shipped. Only one of those announcements changed what a data team can rely on. The editors Wait is a verdict, not an absence of one https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/wait-is-a-verdict/ https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/wait-is-a-verdict/ Sun, 02 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT In defense of the least popular conclusion a review can reach, and why the six-month delay keeps outperforming the launch-week migration. The editors The benchmark you didn't run is the one that matters https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/the-benchmark-you-didnt-run/ https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/the-benchmark-you-didnt-run/ Sun, 19 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT Vendor benchmarks measure the vendor's best day. A short argument for running your own worst one, with our usual apologies to marketing. The editors Governance that ships beats governance that reviews https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/governance-that-ships/ https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/governance-that-ships/ Wed, 08 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT Access control moved into catalogs and policy moved into code. The governance programs that work in 2026 are the ones nobody has to schedule a meeting with. The editors The table format standoff is over and nobody surrendered https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/open-table-format-standoff/ https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/open-table-format-standoff/ Thu, 25 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Iceberg, Delta and the rest converged on features and moved the war to catalogs. Where the actual lock-in lives in 2026, and what to standardize on. The editors Orchestrators in 2026, the gap is closing from both sides https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/orchestrators-compared/ https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/orchestrators-compared/ Fri, 19 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Airflow 3.2 shipped asset partitioning, Dagster went pay-as-you-go, and the asset-versus-task argument is ending in convergence. A review. The editors The real cost of switching BI tools https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/bi-migration-real-costs/ https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/bi-migration-real-costs/ Tue, 16 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT The license comparison is the cheapest part of the spreadsheet. Where BI migrations actually spend their budget, and the line items procurement never sees. The editors Data contracts work exactly where people said they would https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/data-contracts-in-practice/ https://www.vertexjournal.com/reviews/data-contracts-in-practice/ Fri, 12 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT Three years after the discourse peak, contracts settled into a useful, unglamorous role: schema enforcement at team boundaries. A review of what stuck. The editors