Schemas

What is a schema?

A schema is a sort of contract between various applications and areas of a system that defines how a data record should look and what fields it should contain.

Kafka consumers and producers can use the schema to ensure that a message for a given year contains all the details it needs.

Why should I use schemas?

Schemas are beneficial for a lot of reasons:

• Namely, they assist with data validation, ensuring that a record looks as it should and contains all of the necessary information.
• Schemas provide valuable documentation on your datasets and their types.
• They serve to communicate data models across teams, silos, and applications in a consistent way.