The many applications of data contracts

Data contracts are such a simple and flexible pattern that can be applied to many different use cases. These include:

Agreements: A place to capture agreements between the producers and consumers of data, like a specialised ADR
Interfaces: Using data contracts to create and manage interfaces, acting as the API for data (my first use case)
Data quality: Defining and running data quality checks and, sometimes, enforcing them on data producers (the enforcement part is my least favourite use of data contracts)
Federated computational governance: Originally a principle of data mesh, data contracts enable the federated implementation of governance tasks such as access management, data retention, and so on.
Documentation: Capture the documentation for a dataset, how to use it, its limitations, etc
SLOs: Define the SLOs in the data contract and automate the reporting and alerting of those.

Each of these use cases are enabled by the metadata held in the data contract, the fact this metadata is both human- and machine-readable, and it’s stability because it is kept under change management.

Often a single data contract implementation within an organisation will solve for many of these use cases.

For example, in my workshops I build up a data contract over a series of hands-on exercises. We:

Create an interface from a data contract
Implement data quality checks
Populate a data catalog
Implement data governance tasks (data retention and access management)

None of this is particular difficult to implement, once you have that metadata defined in a human- and machine-readable data contract.

These are the many applications of data contracts.

By the way, early bird pricing for my next workshop, in-person in Belgium in June, ends next Monday (March 31). Check it out here!

Interesting links

SQLMesh & Multi-Engine Data Stack by Julien Hurault

I’m getting more interested in how a multi-engine data stack can increase flexibility and reduce costs. It looks like we’re edging closer to being able to implement this with tools like SQLMesh.

The business questions scale, but your analytics setup doesn’t by Timo Dechau

Good article on how important data modelling is to handle more complex analytical needs.

Being punny 😅

Someone asked me what the ninth letter of the alphabet was. It was a complete guess, but I was right.

Upcoming workshops

Implementing a Data Mesh with Data Contracts - Antwerp, Belgium - June 5
- Alongside the inaugural Data Mesh Live conference, where I’ll also be speaking.
- Early Bird pricing available until March 31
- Sign up here

Thanks! If you’d like to support my work…

Thanks for reading this weeks newsletter — always appreciated!

If you’d like to support my work consider buying my book, Driving Data Quality with Data Contracts, or if you have it already please leave a review on Amazon.

Enjoy your weekend.

Andrew