Which of the following sets of layers are typically associated with the Medallion Architecture for data management?

• A. Raw, Polished, Refined
• B. Initial, Intermediate, Final
• C. Bronze, Silver, Gold
• D. Core, Advanced, Premier

Answer: (C)

The Medallion Architecture uses a progression from raw to refined data, organized into three layers named Bronze, Silver, and Gold. Bronze holds the ingested, unprocessed data as it arrives, including any duplicates or noise. Silver cleans, standardizes, and enriches that data, applying quality checks and a consistent schema. Gold contains business-ready data optimized for analytics and reporting, often with aggregates and domain-focused views.

This Bronze–Silver–Gold naming is the standard convention for this architecture, making it easy to understand the data’s journey from raw to analytics-ready. Other naming schemes like Raw/Polished/Refined or Initial/Intermediate/Final exist in some contexts, but they’re not the canonical terms associated with the Medallion pattern.