Data producers set the expectations

For a data consumer to know if the data is applicable to their use case, they need to know what to expect from the data.

That includes how the data is structured (the schema), the characteristics of the data (timeliness, completeness and other SLAs), and how to make best use of the data (its location, limitations, and other documentation).

The only people who know all of these are the data producers.

So, they must set the expectations.

They do so in a data contract.

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