Data Contracts

Data contracts are often viewed as part of a data mesh implementation, but you don’t need to be transforming to a data mesh architecture to benefit from data contracts.

You don’t need to run a big transformation project to start your adoption of data contracts.

If I want to use a dataset to build a critical data application, I need to make a decision on whether it meets my requirements.

This is part 5 and the final part in my Data Reliability series.

What types of companies adopt data contracts?

Ben Watson at Nandos, a South African restaurant chain operating in 30 countries, has a great write up on their modern data platform with data mesh and data contracts.

I was at Confluent’s Data In Motion event in London yesterday and this quote by Tim Berglund in they keynote caught my attention:

When you start your adoption of data contracts, you want to start with the most critical datasets, because this is where you can add the most value.

When a schema change is made in a data contract you might want to think about how you can automate the deployment of that and migration to it, without data loss or effort from the consumers.

What is the problem you’re trying to solve with data contracts?