Of Flowers and Data

A metaphor really

H. Timmerman, Risk and Compliance Platform Europe

Amsterdam, February 8, 2022– A flower is rooted in the earth through its stem. In its life, the flower grows on sturdy green stems or stems that have partly become wood. 

Underneath grows a root system, large enough to provide the plant with sufficient water and food. 

You can see stems, leaves, branches and roots as the infrastructure of the flower. An infrastructure on which a beauty of flowers can develop for years, nourished by the roots and always fresh leaves. 

Photosynthesis ensures that sunlight and CO2, together with the water with minerals from the ground, form glucose as building material for the infrastructure of stems, stems, branches and roots. 

The flowers provide added value, add value and are the identity of the plant. Essentially, pollen and pistil eventually produce seeds. This is ensured by the petals that together form the colored crown. The colors attract bees with a little honey as a reward. 

The longer the plant exists, the more seed and thus value the flower leaves behind. Offspring as family tree of the flower. 

The heritage of floral splendor.

A flower dies at the end of summer or the season. The same goes for the petals. Depending on the type of infrastructure of the flower, it will next year build on existing energy suppliers (evergreen plants) or create new energy suppliers for deciduous plants. 

The ripened seed has meanwhile ended up on the ground. Via the wind, ingenious ‘jumping mechanisms’ or because the seeds wrapped in fragrant food were spread by birds and other animals. 

Think of berries and fruits, in which the seed is stored deep and safely in order to one day germinate ‘somewhere’ in a new place as the heritage of the original flower. Data and information. 

The data flower.

Just like real flowers with an infrastructure that forms the basis and structure on which data is created and processed. An infrastructure that supplies energy for processing and storage. 

Data Flowers symbolize the processes and data that are processed and stored on this infrastructure. Data Flowers that generate data via ‘process leaves’ and store them in the core. 

Matured data that are the assets or heritage of the digital flower. Petals fall off each year and renew in the following spring. After all, petals must be crisp and fresh. They are the visibility, attraction and essence of the plant, even its identity. 

The petals can be compared to the processes that are organized around the data core of the flower. Each petal is a process in its own right.

The data flower revolves around the growing amount of data in the center of the flower. A flower that can only exist because there is a physical infrastructure underneath, which has enough energy to feed the flower and its processes and has the strength to sustain. 

The data flower is a core of data surrounded by petal-like processes. Each petal is a process that starts from the data and returns there. However, new data is created with every process. 

Data arise from previous data at the start of a process. 

Data collected during a process. Or data that has been supplied or collected via an external process. 

Core of active data.

The core of the data flower is active data. The processes are organized like leaves around that active data. Every process starts from existing data and returns with new data. The basics of data-centric thinking. 

The processes will eventually decay and renew themselves, just like petals. But data persists and forms the growing heritage of the data flower. Data, as recorded data and matured information, provides new dates for flowers. 

Provided they also have a solid, well-fed infrastructure, rooted on fertile soil. The data flower is the essence of data-centric thinking. 

The flower as the symbol of Yin and Yang with associated data and processes. With other flowers on a common infrastructure. 

The beauty of a single data flower or the overall picture of a large collection, each surrounded by self-renewing processes and applications. Data as asset and heritage As with the real flowers, the remaining data of the data flower is the heritage we preserve and reuse. 

The result of a collection of process browsing as a composite application. Data Flowers with historical data from applications and processes that have long since disappeared. The old poetry verse ‘flowers wither, ships perish, but our love always remains’ has a new form: Applications wither, processes perish, but our data, always remains. 

This verse indicates that both processes and applications, like petals, are temporary. Necessary to ensure that data is generated. For reuse, storage and as heritage. As the ultimate assets of the flower and even the plant. There is no better metaphor.

 A metaphor for beautiful data centric thinking.

Hans Timmerman Fortierra Director.  Risk & Compliance Platform Europe.