Which concept is essential for ensuring data quality and compliance across an organization in MDC3?

• A. Data governance
• B. Encryption in transit
• C. Microservices
• D. DevOps

Answer: (A)

Data governance is the framework that ensures data quality and compliance across an organization. It defines who owns data, what the data means (through definitions and metadata), and how data should be collected, stored, cleansed, and used. It sets data quality standards and rules, plus processes for monitoring quality and preventing errors across systems. It also establishes policies, roles (like data stewards), and accountability, along with data lineage and metadata management so you can trace data from source to destination. Importantly, it incorporates privacy, security, and regulatory controls to meet legal requirements and support audits. This organization-wide approach directly ensures data quality and regulatory compliance, which is why it’s the best fit. Encryption in transit protects data in motion but doesn’t organize or enforce data quality and governance across the enterprise, and microservices or DevOps address architecture and delivery processes rather than enterprise-wide data stewardship and policy enforcement.