Why data contracts?

Happy Friday!

Thanks to everyone who has signed up for my new course! I’m so humbled by the response to it so far :). Today’s post is also from the course and describes why data contracts are becoming so important.

The 25% off code, W1NX99YYT5, is valid until midnight tonight UTC, so grab it now if you haven’t already!

There’s also links to articles comparing data product standards, what to do with cross-functional data, and a new cloud data platform from Cloudflare.

Why data contracts

Why is it data contracts are becoming important?

It’s because we want to do more with data.

It could be gaining a competitive advantage based on our organisations unique data, supporting key business functions and processes with data, or (of course) taking advantage of the latest developments in AI.

We also want to be more effective with data.

Whether that’s using more of data to drive action, providing a greater return on the investments we made, or just generally increasing the impact we are having on the business.

And we also need greater control of our data.

With data and privacy regulation, data breaches causing significant brand damage, and increasing public awareness of their personal data, this is essential for all businesses.

But the same old problems get in our way. We call them data quality problems, and they include lack of expectations (correctness, completeness, etc), low trust, no ownership, breaking changes upstream, and so on.

These are problems we’ve had for decades, and we’re struggling to solve them.

Maybe we need a different approach.

One based on explicit contracts between the producers and consumers of data that provide stable interfaces, define expectations, and automate data management.

That’s what we can build with data contracts.

And I show you exactly how to do so in my new course.

Interesting links

ODPS ≠ ODPS: Why Your Data Product Strategy Needs Both by Daniel Kocot

Interesting comparison of two data product standards.

What to do with cross-functional data by Charlotte Ledoux

You’ll force them to actually TALK together. It is that simple, I’m not kidding.

Announcing the Cloudflare Data Platform: ingest, store, and query your data directly on Cloudflare

Cloudflare’s new data platform includes pipelines (based on Arroyo), a data catalog, and a distributed SQL engine. Looks interesting!

Being punny 😅

Can you believe that Spandau Ballet only had one number one single? It’s True.

Thanks!

As always, thanks for reading!

Andrew