flowchart TD A[1. Start] --> B{2. Understand Business Objectives} B --> C[3. Identify Data Sources] C --> D[4. Determine Data Volume and Velocity] D --> E{5. Is Real-time Processing Needed?} E -->|Yes| F[6. Plan for Streaming Data] E -->|No| G[7. Plan for Batch Processing] F --> H[8. Consider Data Processing Tools e.g., Kinesis, Lambda] G --> I[9. Consider Data Processing Tools e.g., S3, Glue, EMR] H --> J{10. Data Security Requirements?} I --> J J -->|Yes| K[11. Implement Security Measures e.g., Encryption, IAM] J -->|No| L[12. Basic Security Measures] K --> M[13. Choose Storage Solutions e.g., S3, Redshift] L --> M M --> N[14. Define Metadata Management Strategy] N --> O[15. Plan for Data Governance and Compliance] O --> P{16. Integration with Other AWS Services?} P -->|Yes| Q[17. Identify Integration Points e.g., RDS, DynamoDB] P -->|No| R[18. Proceed Without Additional Integrations] Q --> S[19. End] R --> S

This decision flow summarises the discovery questions used to scope an AWS data lake engagement, ensuring stakeholders agree on objectives, guardrails, and integrations before the platform build begins.