The wide variety and different characteristics of NoSQL databases creates a complex technology acquisition and design landscape for organizations looking to build scalable, high performance data management systems. In addition, scalable 'big data' systems are significant long-term investments that must scale to handle ever-increasing data volumes, and therefore represent high risk applications in which the software and data architectures are fundamental components of ensuring success. This talk describe how we are developing a software and data architecture knowledge base and technology evaluation approach specifically targeted at big data systems and NoSQL technology adoptions.