Skip to main content

ETL Tools

Image
By

Source

In the current business world, every organization is flooded with data and you need appropriate tools to get the most out of your data. One such tool is ETL. Let's start with understanding what does it actually means. ETL is an acronym for Extract, Transform and Load. As the name suggests, ETL is used for consolidating data from various data sources, transforming the data according to your needs, and then loading the data into the desired database. ETL plays a pivotal role in managing your data, making it ready for analysis, and improves data warehousing.

If data warehousing is something that your organization depends on then ETL tools can prove out to be a vital part of your organization. ETL tools provide process data for analysis which lets you make better graphical representation and can lead to informed decision making. Does it create any difference if we interchange the position of "T" and "L"? Yes, there's a difference between the two as in ELT after extracting your data you need to load your data in the database and it is transformed into the database. In ELT source and the target database is similar, unlike ETL.

According to my experiences, I believe that ELT helps you to utilize cloud technologies in the most effective way and it can prove out to be the future of data warehousing. As the dependency on the data is amplifying day by day and it requires ELT which can manage large datasets with ease. It is quite a subjective thought and I would love to know your thoughts about it.

There are plenty of options available but I will focus on the most popular ETL tools are available in the market. These tools prove out to be a great aid in designing the ETL pipelines and can connect to the various relational databases.

  • Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services- If you are a SQL user then you must be aware of this. It is widely used for data migration. It costs lower than the other ETL tools and it is very convenient to use.
  • Oracle Data Integrator (ODI)- It uses a different approach than other ETL tools which is ELT. It offers similar functions as ETL tools. ODI transfer the data into a separate destination then transformation is performed.
  • IBM InfoSphere Data Stage- It is an ETL tool that is used to provide data-integrated solutions. It is widely used with mainframe computers. IBM offers some other similar products and data stage overlaps within the family. It is difficult to get a license of data stage and also it costs more as compared to other ETL tools.
  • Informatica Power Center- It is one of the most widely used ETL tools by organizations. There is a reason why it is used by various industry experts because it is more IT-centric as compared to other tools. But it works well with structured data you need to opt for some other tool if you are data is unstructured in nature.
There is a pool of options like the above mentioned. But the question is how to select the right ETL tool for your organization? The main idea behind the ETL is data integration. If you need to invest in such tools make decisive data integration and business intelligence strategy which can vary from business to business. Be confident about your requirements and business strategy because that will decide the success of using any ETL tool. There are several other aspects associated with choosing the right ETL tool. If you are using for personal purpose then open source ETL tools are the best options as they are available at lower cost and can be perfect for smaller datasets.

Thanks for Reading  Let's connect on  LinkedIn


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ultimate Beginners Guide to DAX Studio

By
There are zillions of external tools available with Power BI but DAX Studio is one of the most commonly used tools to work with DAX queries. It is a perfect tool to optimize the DAX and the data model. In this blog let's shed some light on the basic functionalities that can take your report to the next level. ARE YOU READY?  To start you will need the latest version of the DAX Studio. You can download it from their website . Don't worry you don't have to pay for the license. Fortunately, DAX Studio is a free tool As a BI Developer, I am using DAX Studio regularly. Based on my experience I use it for several purposes but in this blog, I will highlight the most common ones. Extracting a dump of all the measures used in your PBIX. Why do we need to do this? It can be used for documentation purposes also sometimes we try to reuse the DAX and such a dump comes in handy in this scenario. How to achieve it? Open the DAX Studio it is located under the external tools once you open t
Post a Comment
Read more

Identify and Delete Unused Columns & Measures

By
Heavy dashboards and a bad data model is a nightmare for every BI Developer. Heavy dashboards can be slow due to multiple reasons. It is always advised to stick with best practices. Are you still figuring out about those best practices then you should definitely have a quick read on Best Practice Analyser ( link ). One of the most common issues with slow dashboards is unused columns and unused measures.  It is very normal to load some extra columns and create some test measures in your dashboard but as a part of cleanup process those unused columns and unused measures should be removed. Why we are removing them? Because if you keep them then ultimately it will increase the size of your data model which is not a good practice.  How to identify the culprits (unused columns and unused measures)? In today's blog we will provide you with 2 most common external tools which will help you in identifying the culprits. More external tools😒. Who's going to pay for this? To your surprise
Post a Comment
Read more

Append v/s Merge in Power BI

By
Let's discuss another problem of the week. As a Power BI user, there are times when you want to combine queries. What are the ways to do so? In most cases, you can attain it by using either append or merge and both serve different purposes. Let's understand what do these terms mean in Power BI and how they are functionally different from each other.  It is quite common to get data from various sources and you need to combine those data depending on a particular column which is common in both tables so that you can add extra information or column to your big table. In such cases, we use merge queries. How to perform merge queries? For instance, I am considering Sample Superstore data and we will merge the returns table to the order table. You will find both merge and append in the home tab in extreme right in the power query editor. ProTip - You will find two options when you click on the drop-down in merge which are merge queries and merge queries as new. When you use merge que
Post a Comment
Read more