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Data Ownership Zones

Graded by who wrote the data and what losing it costs. The hottest, largest zone has the cheapest failure.

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Zone 1 — Provider truth · written by the provider · RPO 24 h · re-fetchable · 37 months Raw export partitions never edited Invoice summaries Landing manifests Zone 2 — Conformed facts · written by the platform · derived · rebuildable · 37 months FOCUS cost records 1.2 bn/month Restatement revisions Usage samples 90 d native Zone 3 — Human assertions · written by people · RPO 0 · NOT rebuildable · 7 years Ownership assignments effective-dated Allocation policy versions Exception registry Driver definitions Zone 4 — Allocated facts · derived and disposable · RPO best-effort · 13 months Allocated cost rows rebuild in 24 h Roll-up marts Zone 5 — Published record · immutable · RPO 0 · legally retained · 7 years Frozen statements Dispute ledger GL postings Audit log conform snapshot freeze Data Ownership Zones — Graded by Who Wrote It and What Losing It Costs Data store batch synchronous The largest and hottest store, zone 4, has the weakest durability requirement — because it is the only one that can be recomputed exactly. v 1.0 · owner Platform Architecture · date 2026-09

The grading

  • Zone 1 and 2 are re-fetchable or derivable: RPO 24 h and rebuildable
  • Zone 3 is human-authored and cannot be reconstructed from anything: RPO 0, 7-year retention
  • Zone 4 is the largest store and is disposable: RPO best-effort, RTO 24 h for full re-derivation
  • Zone 5 is the published record and is legally retained: RPO 0, immutable, 7 years

Why this matters

  • Durability spend follows irreplaceability, not size — the inverse of the usual instinct
  • Making zone 4 disposable is what makes restatement affordable enough to be the normal path

Confidentiality

  • Cost data discloses headcount, product economics, vendor terms and roadmap timing; it is commercially confidential, not ordinary telemetry
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Solution Architecture v1.0 · Microsoft Azure · Cost & Efficiency Architecture · 2026-0910-data-ownership-zones