In today’s competitive business world, data is one of the most important assets. It’s almost impossible to make business decisions and grow if your organization isn’t tracking the many details that affect your operations every day.
Most organizations have no shortage of data, but processing and organizing of the data becomes problematic as the size of data sets increase. ETL (extract, transform, and load) has been the workhorse that keeps data moving through business networks, but the speed and volume of data is growing, causing a shift to cloud-based ETL.
This has become a vital tool for managing enormous data sets, and one that companies will begin to rely on more in the future.
What is ETL?
ETL is the global standard for processing large amounts of data (that isn’t optimized for analytics), to a central host (which is). Doing so allows an organization’s systems to have a finite set of data that is all organized in one place. It’s the most effective way for organizations to maintain an accurate view of their data.
ETL stands for Extract, Transform, and Load, which are three distinct functions:
- Extract: Raw data is collected from diverse sources all over the company, including databases, network systems, security hardware and software, etc.
- Transform: Streams of information are channeled into usable data, with duplicate data being eliminated to reduce data volume. The data is standardized and formatted, then sorted and verified.
- Load: Data is deposited into the target location, such as databases or analysis tools.
ETL may be used to store legacy data but more commonly now it is a means of aggregating data to be analyzed and inform business decision making.
ETL in the cloud
With the exponential explosion of data, modern businesses need to integrate complex data from more diverse sources, which requires more robust ETL tools than the traditional methods, which involved considerable investment in physical data warehouses.
To overcome these challenges, there has been a shift to using cloud-based ETL, where the data source can be online or on-premise and the destination data warehouse is online. There is no need to invest in physical data warehouses and hardware that need to be maintained.
Cloud ETL manages the dataflows with robust tools that allow users to create and monitor automated ETL pipelines, which can be deployed in minutes.
Cloud-based ETL works much the same way as traditional ETL:
- Cost-effective: there is no need to spend money on purchasing and maintaining physical hardware. Many cloud ETL services have pay-as-you-go pricing models and users are only charged for the resources consumed, instead of fixed pricing which can become expensive.
- Rapid insight: cloud ETL allows businesses to carry out ETL processes more rapidly and effectively, with minimal latency and data ready in almost real-time, allowing users to make use of the data for informed business decision making.
- Ease of setup: cloud ETL doesn’t require on-premise servers or physical devices to be set up, so deployment is much easier and faster. Physical devices and servers require a lot of space and maintenance which needs to be done manually.
Cloud technology is the quickest and easiest way for organizations to get up and running with ETL processes. Cloud-based ETL software use a real-time processing framework to process data from various sources, and offers a wide range of features that allow users to easily connect cloud systems with on-premise systems, utilizing cloud technology to maintain their efficiency and scalability.
Nearly 95% of businesses use cloud technology today. That number has grown by 20% in less than two years, as enterprises realize the efficiency, productivity, and agility cloud computing enables. If your organization has databases, then a cloud-based ETL operation is a must-have.
Everconnect are experts in ETL solutions, such as SQL Server Integration services – SSIS, Informatica, Xplenty, FiveTran, and Azure Data Factory, Microsoft’s cloud-based ETL solution. Talk to the ETL solutions experts at Everconnect and get the most out of your business data.
Local, clunky ETL should be a thing of the past. It’s not cost or time-effective and since so many businesses already operate in the cloud this should be the next obvious step.
If it can make things faster and run more effectively then it’s good in my book. Why aren’t more companies using this technology? Is it because they don’t know about it? Or maybe don’t know how to properly use it?
Great article, keep it up.
Now a days ELT (not ETL) and Lake house architectures on cloud premises are getting more BUSINESS attention.