Which service provides published data source metadata to services like Ask Data?

The correct choice highlights a crucial component of Tableau's architecture that facilitates enriched interactions with data. Data Source Properties encompass vital metadata related to published data sources, informing various Tableau services about the data's structure, schema, and other pertinent characteristics. This metadata is essential for enabling services like Ask Data, which relies on a clear understanding of the data available for natural language queries.

When users engage with Ask Data, they expect the tool to recognize the available fields, dimensions, and measures in a data source. This is where Data Source Properties come into play, ensuring that the metadata is appropriately communicated to services that need it for functionality, user experience, and optimized data retrieval.

Other options do not directly serve this function. For instance, the Metrics Service is centered around performance tracking and insights rather than providing metadata to different services. The Caching Service is designed to enhance the speed and performance of data retrieval by storing copies of frequently requested data. Finally, the File Store manages the physical storage of files and extracts but does not deal with published data source metadata in a way that supports services like Ask Data. Thus, the role of Data Source Properties in providing metadata is essential for supporting user interactions and ensuring accurate data handling within Tableau.