Glossary
What do bronze, silver, and gold mean in data pipelines?
Last updated Monday, Aug 3, 2026
Bronze, silver, and gold are the traditional names for the three layers of medallion architecture: raw source data, cleaned and validated data, and business-ready aggregates. OptimaFlo uses those same three layers but calls them Raw, Clean, and Ready in the product and user-facing docs, keeping bronze, silver, and gold as internal names only.
Where the color names come from
Bronze, silver, and gold describe a progression in refinement, the same metaphor as medal tiers: each layer is a step closer to something trustworthy and ready to use. Bronze is the least refined, data as it arrived. Gold is the most refined, aggregated and business-ready. The naming predates any single vendor and shows up across the data engineering industry.
What they map to in OptimaFlo
| Traditional name | OptimaFlo name | Who owns the work here |
|---|---|---|
| Bronze | Raw | The Data Engineer role lands each connected source untouched |
| Silver | Clean | The Analytics Engineer role writes and version-controls the SQL |
| Gold | Ready | Dashboards and reports read from this layer directly |
For what each layer actually does and why the three-layer split matters, see medallion architecture.
Related terms
- Medallion architecture: The full explanation of what each of the three layers does and why they're separate.
- Apache Iceberg: The table format OptimaFlo stores all three layers in.
Frequently asked questions
Browse every term or see the AI data team roles.
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