Databricks DE-ASSOC Medallion Architecture Guide

This lesson covers one of the cleanest conceptual objectives on DE-ASSOC: the three layers of the medallion architecture. The exam uses these layers to test whether you know where raw landing ends, where cleaned and conformed data begins, and where business-ready outputs belong.

Bronze: Raw landing layer that prioritizes fidelity and replayability.

Silver: Cleaned, validated, joined, and conformed data layer used for reliable downstream work.

Gold: Curated business-facing or consumption-ready output layer.

Why DE-ASSOC keeps testing this

Medallion questions are really about data responsibility, not just folder names. The exam wants to know whether you can tell:

• where replayable intake ends
• where standardization and quality controls begin
• where business-facing outputs should live
• which layer is safest for a change in logic

High-yield layer map

Common placement decisions

The important exam instinct

The medallion model is not only about storage location. It is about responsibility:

• bronze protects raw intake
• silver improves correctness and consistency
• gold packages data for consumption

If a stem asks where heavy business aggregation belongs, gold is often the lane. If it asks where you standardize and deduplicate records, silver is usually the lane. If it asks where you keep source fidelity and replay options, bronze is usually the lane.

Common traps

• putting conformed business logic into bronze because the team wants it available quickly
• treating silver as optional cleanup instead of the trusted reusable layer
• using gold for every table that looks important, even when downstream engineering reuse still matters

Harder scenario question

A team ingests raw order events, removes duplicates, standardizes customer identifiers, then builds daily revenue marts for finance dashboards. Which medallion path is strongest?

• A. Put all three outputs directly in gold
• B. Keep raw events in bronze, standardized reusable records in silver, and finance marts in gold
• C. Keep everything in bronze for replay
• D. Use gold for raw events and bronze for dashboards

Correct answer: B. The workflow moves from raw fidelity, to reusable cleaned data, to business-facing consumption.

Decision order that usually wins

1. Decide whether the logic belongs in raw landing, reusable conformance, or business-facing serving.
2. Treat bronze, silver, and gold as responsibility boundaries, not branding.
3. Keep raw preservation separate from quality and business logic.
4. Prefer progressive refinement over one mixed-purpose layer.
5. Place logic where downstream trust and reuse stay strongest.

Quiz