Don’t Be Intimidated by ETL and Data Prep. It’s EASY!
When you hear the term ‘Extract, Transform and Load’, does it make you want to run in the opposite direction? ETL, as it is called, refers to the process of connecting to data sources, integrating data from various data sources, improving data quality, aggregating it and then storing it in staging data source or data marts or data warehouses for consumption of various business applications including BI, Analytics and Reporting.
The term, and the process, seem daunting to many people and when managers think about allowing business users to access data through ETL and prepare that data for analysis, the prospect of ETL becomes even MORE daunting!
But, with the right tools, ETL need not be as difficult as you imagine, and establishing the appropriate data security and access to protect users and data privacy does not have to stop your ETL initiative. The idea of providing ETL and data access to business users may cause concern but before you discount the democratization of data, it is important to understand the agility and accessibility provided by business user access to Self-Serve Data Preparation tools.
When you provide a solid ETL foundation with appropriate monitoring, management, integration processes and skills and add the flexibility of self-serve data preparation for business users, you can acquire good data quickly and offer insight to business users. With the right ETL and Data Preparation Tools, business users can compile, and analyze data from data warehouses, data marts, ERP, best-of-breed applications, CRM and any number of operational system databases, spreadsheets, cloud based data sources and legacy systems.
A great Augmented Analytics solution provides self-serve data preparation, including ETL for business users, and it enables business users to leverage sophisticated, easy-to-use tools for self-serve ETL. Self-Service ETL will walk business users through an augmented data preparation process and take the complicated, confusing steps out of the process by helping the user make decisions on how to prepare, clean, reduce and use the data in the best way possible.
If you want to take the mystery and intimidation out of ETL and data prep, talk to the experts. Easy Self-Serve ETL and Data Prep.
Original Post: ETL Need Not Be Daunting!
