Skip to content
~/reflective_data

analytics-dictionary / term / data infrastructure

Schema

A schema defines the structure of data: the tables, columns and data types it contains.

Written by Reflective Data experts · updated Oct 5, 2026

Sources change their schemas without warning, adding fields or renaming columns, and pipelines must adapt. Schema changes are a leading cause of broken dashboards.

Schema tests and contracts help catch changes early.

related

Data contractData pipelineData quality

// how we can help

We design, build and optimise data warehouses and the cloud infrastructure around them. Data infrastructure services → · Managed data pipelines

more in data infrastructure

etl.md

ETL (extract, transform, load)

ETL is a process that extracts data from sources, transforms it, and then loads it into…
data-lineage.md

Data lineage

Data lineage shows where data comes from and how it is transformed on its way to…
data-warehouse.md

Data warehouse

A data warehouse is a central database designed for analysis, where data from many systems is…
data-warehouse-migration.md

Data warehouse migration

A warehouse migration moves data, models and reports from one warehouse platform to another.
microsoft-azure.md

Microsoft Azure

Azure is Microsoft cloud platform, with data services such as Synapse, Data Lake Storage and Fabric.
snowflake.md

Snowflake

Snowflake is a cloud data platform used as a data warehouse, with storage and compute scaled…

← full analytics dictionary