Meeting the Challenges

Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) processes are critical elements of any data warehousing initiative and data production system. Integrating data that resides in multiple sources and multiple formats, cleaning it and formatting it uniformly for effective use and analysis is central to the efficient operation of almost all business processes.

There are several challenges involved in implementing the right ETL solution including:

ETL Scalability

It is important to fully understand the need for scale when planning an ETL system. This means identifying not only how large the volume may become but also what processing time parameters may look like in the future. Scalability is a particularly important consideration when the system is part of a software product or service, since your customers' data volume will continue to increase as we will their need for real-time insights.

Data Profiling

When creating validation, cleansing, and transformation rules, it is important to fully assess several aspects of the incoming data, particularly:

• Variability
• Quality
• Range of values

This assessment is part of the data profiling process, which involves several different analyses that explore the structure and content of your data. Data profiling requirements should be developed in accordance with the project's business objectives. These requirements inform the choice of investigation techniques and tools.

Specific data profiling procedures should be developed for a project in order to optimize the effectiveness of the analysis. These procedures should take into consideration the addition of future data sources.

The Wider Context

ETL solutions should not be implemented in a vacuum. The issues involved, including data profiling and scalability, impact the entire data production system. Answering key questions about an ETL implementation leads to questions about other key elements:

• The results of the data profiling process should inform the infrastructure for the data warehouse and data marts.
• Answering questions about scalability and processing needs requires that you understand the long-term business objectives for the system. (i.e. How will you use it?  And more importantly, how can you use it now and in the future to generate new revenues?)

The ETL Right Solutions

Aginity excels at solving ETL challenges

• We're data experts. We know these challenges better than anyone in the industry. Our team consists of data and application development experts with decades of collective experience implanting these solutions.
• We can help you identify the right ETL tools. Our deep understanding of the ETL landscape helps us identify the most appropriate, most cost-effective technologies for your situation. Leveraging what you have in place, to save time and money, is an essential part of our approach.
• We can help you address the system from a high level. We understand the wider implications of an ETL system and we specialize in addressing them. Intelligence Software Delivery, our development methodology, focuses on clarifying your long term business objectives and deploying solutions that help you achieve them rapidly and efficiently.

Beyond ETL

If data is at the core of your business, it's time to look beyond an ETL solution to the design and development of a scalable data factory and an automated system that integrates the collection, processing and visualization of data, accelerating the delivery of real intelligence and real value.