Data is the heart of every modern business. It exists everywhere, whether it is product information, the estimated delivery date, the amount of time you spend on your smartphone, or anything else. Systems, devices, and services generate data that, when processed and used correctly, can help you make better business decisions. But there is an overwhelming amount of data floating across the web, so it becomes difficult for you to extract meaningful information from it. This is why businesses today need a solution that can efficiently and securely manage data to make better strategies and provide the best experience to the customers. An ETL tool does just that. It helps you make better decisions and set practical goals by bringing all your data to a single place for you to transform and analyze. Let’s understand all about ETL tools, what they do, and how you can gain business-driven intelligence from them.
What do you mean by ETL?
ETL stands for Extract, Transform and Load. In simple words, ETL is a data integration process where a company brings data from multiple sources and gathers it in a single unified data store. Enterprises use the process to build a better data warehouse to drive their business faster. It contains three steps to do the work:
Data extraction: You need to EXTRACT data from various sources and store it in a single centralized database.Data transformation: To make sense of this raw data, you must TRANSFORM it by combining and deduplicating it while ensuring its quality.Loading data: At last, you need to LOAD this data into the targetted destination for implementation.
What are ETL Tools?
ETL tools are solutions that help you bring out data from different sources and transform them into a centralized store. These tools help companies enable data integration strategies by gathering different data and consolidating them into a single data warehouse. ETL tools make various data work together. As a result, the process plays a vital role in producing better business intelligence and executing more comprehensive data management strategies.
ETL vs. ELT
Both ETL and ELT are quite similar but has differences in their working style. ETL is best when you are dealing with smaller sets of data that require tough transformations. On the other hand, ELT is best suited for dealing with large amounts of unstructured and structured data. Let’s find out the critical differences between the two:
ETL stands for Extract, Transform, and Load process, whereas ELT stands for Extract, Load, and Transform.In ETL, data moves from the source to the destination. But, in ELT, there is no need for data staging as it leverages the data stores to do common transformations. ETL offers more security while performing basic transformations as it transforms the data in the middle of the process. ELT works well when the sensitive data gets uploaded first. ETL is quite good when it comes to more stable, efficient, and speedier data analysis. On the other hand, ELT is not that good when it comes to speedy analysis.
How does ETL Tool work?
ETL is an excellent solution for data-driven organizations. It works great for every business by helping them deliver data in the correct format and efficiently. ETL tools come in different functions and shapes depending upon the use and environment. Some tools come with very basic features, while others come with advanced features, best for experienced users. But, you will find something common in every tool, i.e., the goal of streamlining and simplifying the process. Here’s how ETL tools work:
EXTRACT the data from different sources according to the organization’s goalTRANSFORM the same data from its original raw form to a clear format in order to gain meaningful information and business intelligence.LOAD the transformed data into a cloud or on-premise data warehouse where you can use it for reporting and analytics in order to shape your business strategies.
The visual framework helps users understand the data flow from the sources to the final destination. ETL tools come with monitoring, error handling, and logging capabilities to recover your data from complex problems.
Why do you need ETL tools?
ETL tools help businesses bring out their data from different sources, transform it, and load it in the cloud or on-premise data warehouse. As a result, data scientists can easily access and analyze data to turn the simple data into valuable and powerful business intelligence. Let’s know what benefits you will get by using ETL tools:
ETL not only fulfills its terms but also helps you build a visual data flow so that you can make better business decisions and enhance the user experience. It offers interactive and productive visualization solutions from your database or applications to give you actionable insights. An ETL tool can automate your data collection, transformation, and consolidation, instead of manually doing everything. This way, you save your time and effort. It performs the overall process with better efficiency and performance. An ETL tool can handle large and complex data.It enables advanced data cleansing and profiling.
Now, let’s see some of the best ETL tools that can help you drive your business by leveraging data.
Supermetrics
With Supermetrics, you can acquire the marketing data you need and bring all the data to your go-to reporting, storage, and analytics platform, whether it’s a data warehouse, data lake, data visualization tool, spreadsheet, or BI tool. Organize your marketing data effectively so that it will never let you slow down. You can bring dimensions and metrics quickly from the marketing platforms into the go-to reporting with no sampling or timepass; all you get is just clean data. Once you get your data to your preferred storage place, start organizing it and filter your data accordingly. You can also check the performance to know what is working and what is not. In the end, get into optimization—Ready your dashboard by automating your reporting and scheduling data transfers while eliminating hours of manual work. Furthermore, Supermetrics has got your back if you want to build stunning dashboards. The only work you must do is work on the crunching numbers in the spreadsheet or move your data into the data warehouse. Choose your marketing data destination and see what happens next. Extract your marketing data in JSON or CSV formats or by using custom output formats. Get complete access to the Supermetrics for 14-days without using any credit card. Once you are satisfied, select your preferable data destination and get the pricing.
Dataddo
Connect all your data sources to storage and dashboards instantly with Dataddo. It helps you collect any marketing data from any source and get to any destination with ease. Take no stress while integrating; Dataddo allows you to monitor all the incoming data from the management center. This solution does everything in a jiffy, from the moment you sign up and connect it to your data pipelines to carrying the data from source to the destination. All the changes to the pipelines are managed by Dataddo so that you won’t worry about the missing data due to the broken pipelines. With sophisticated data manipulation features on Dataddo’s no-code and streamlined platform, non-technical users can use it like a pro. In addition, it operates with the BI tools and data warehouse so that you can bring your own data. Dataddo works for your system and gives you a good night’s sleep. Stop sorting and start working with Dataddo’s unstoppable platform. Take a 14-day free trial or buy it at $35/month per source.
Hevo
Setup your reliable marketing data pipelines within minutes with Hevo. It is a highly intuitive and no code data pipeline that loads data faster from any source to the warehouse in real-time for better analytics. Hevo supports more than 100 ready-to-use integrations across SaaS applications, SDKs, streaming services, cloud storage, and databases. It effortlessly connects data with any source and analyzes it across different data formats. Hevo’s fully automated and managed data pipeline loads all the data to the data warehouse and prepares it for further analysis. With just a few clicks, you can set up a pipeline via Hevo’s intuitive Interface. Anyone in your team can easily set up the data pipeline. Hence, it saves time while developing a core product. Allow Hevo to manage all your pipelines and future operations. When you have this ETL tool, you don’t need ETL scripts or Cron jobs for your marketing data. Hevo can detect faults and format or transform data efficiently. It can handle millions of records without latency which proves that your pipelines will scale with the growth of your business.
Skyvia
Get a universal cloud data platform for data management, backup, connectivity, and integration with Skyvia. It is a 100% cloud platform that offers cloud scalability and agility while replacing the need for manual upgrades or deployment. Skyvia provides no coding wizard-based solution to fulfill the needs of IT professionals and business users with little to zero coding knowledge. Whether you are a small startup or an enterprise, Skyvia can help you create and manage data pipelines easily and connect your on-premise and cloud data to automate and streamline your workflows. Furthermore, you can migrate your business data automatically between various cloud applications in just a few clicks. Skyvia lets you protect your cloud data, keep your data safe in one place and connect with many OData consumers by sharing real data via REST API. You can also manage and query any data from any browser through intuitive visual Query Builder or SQL. Start with a basic package of $15/month.
Stitch
Use Stitch Data to get answers faster, rapidly move your marketing data from over 130 sources into a data warehouse, and leverage the analysis-ready data. It enables you to take more time analyzing valuable insights and less time managing data pipelines. Stitch gives extensible and simple ETL built-in options for your data teams. Whenever your team requires any data source, Stitch’s extensibility features allow it to proceed. Get the power to secure, govern, and analyze your marketing data by storing it in your infrastructure. Bring control and transparency to your data pipeline with Stitch’s orchestration features. It also helps you extract data from the sources that matter, load data into your preferred platforms, and analyze it with Stitch’s excellent tools. In addition, extend its features with the open-source option., from performance to security. Get started with a free trial.
AWS Glue
Get a scalable, serverless, and simple data integration service with AWS Glue and make your work easier while discovering, combining, and preparing data for machine learning, application development, and analytics. AWS Glue has all the qualities that you need for data integration. Hence, start analyzing now and put your data to use within minutes instead of hours and days. It performs multiple tasks, including extracting and discovering data from different sources, cleaning, combining, normalizing, and enriching data. You will experience code-based and visual interfaces to make data integration easier. Users can also find data and access it easily via AWS Glue Data Catalog. ETL and developers and data engineers can visually create, monitor, and run ETL workflows in just a few clicks. You can visually enrich, normalize, and clean data without writing any code. Furthermore, you can use SQL to replicate and combine data across various data stores. With AWS Glue, you will get faster data integration and can automate your data integration workflow to scale your business. AWS will give you the flexibility of choosing your custom estimate so that you will know the cost based on your needs.
Integrate
Turn your data house into a data platform with Integrate and power all operational systems and company decision-making. It helps provide a better customer experience, more profit, and faster growth. It empowers eCommerce companies that need real-time reporting to grow and operate their business. They can integrate supply power to many industries to grow with their own data. You can enhance customer experience with real-time inventory, carrier, and fulfillment performance reporting to uncover operational efficiencies and build reliable forecasts. Start your 7-day free trial today and turn your data into meaningful insights.
Fivetran
Centralize data effortlessly with Fivetran and deliver faster and better insights among the customers. It enables you to connect securely to the applications and databases that drive your business faster. Select the destination of your choice to bring data from the data warehouse or other sources to get what you need to build a data-driven business. With integrated transformations, you can accelerate the analytics. Fivetran’s pipelines continuously and automatically update with fully managed connectors so that you can free up some time to focus on the main game. It is an easy-to-use platform that maintains API changes and rich data insights in minutes. Fivetran guarantees an uptime of 99.9%, which means Fivetran will never leave you in the dark. It will do all the pipeline work for you to sit and focus on the rest. Whatever the data will be, Fivetran seamlessly prepares, cleans, and lands your data in the perfect destination. Get comprehensive security and faster insights with pre-built transformations, governance, privacy, and 24/7 support as well as guidance. Join with millions and see What Fivetran can do, check its case studies, and understand the working behavior of centralizing their data. Start it for free or choose from various options starting at $60/month, which accepts one user up to 0.5M usage cap, and many more.
Informatica
Build an intelligent data enterprise with Informatica and manage all your data in a single platform to drive your business on a perfect path. Your data has something that helps you to be extraordinary in the market. Informatica helps you transform your data from basic information to business intelligence via its Intelligent Data Management Cloud (a cloud that is only dedicated to data management). No matter what your business is, it empowers your data with the help of industry-leading data management solutions. Integrate, access, and ingest all the data to accelerate your analytics along with AI projects and drive cloud modernization. Also, protect your data by using a marketplace where you can enhance the value of privacy regulations and meet daily changes. Gain a perfect view of all your data in a single window for better insights in order to improve experiences, online sales, and supply chains. Informatica delivers and synchronizes all the data to modernize applications rapidly and automate business processes. Access the free trial to know how this solution works.
Matillion
Manage CDC and batch pipelines together with Matillion Data Loader without coding knowledge. It makes modern analytics easy with a cloud-native platform. Many businesses that have failed to capture data in time can now transform their data into useful information. Stay competitive in the market with Matillion’s cloud-native ETL solutions. It helps enterprises convert simple data into analytics-ready and actionable data in minutes for better business decisions and new insights. Virtually load any data from any source into the cloud easily and take the help of transformation and a comprehensive cloud integration platform for your data teams. Matillion extracts the data, transforms it, and loads it in the cloud data warehouse. Matillion ETL tool gives power, economics, and flexibility of the cloud to get whatever you want to drive your business. Ensure you give ready, rapid, and easy access to your data users to enhance its value. Use Matillion’s extensive inventory of out-of-the-box and pre-built connectors for the most popular databases and applications. Start it for free and choose from available options to avail yourself of a free trial option with every paid plan.
Conclusion
ETL tools provide a central place for all your data so that you can build data pipelines and connect stakeholders as well as leaders with the information they need to work efficiently. This will help your data teams to achieve new levels of standardization and speed no matter how complex the work is. Thus, choosing the best ETL solution for your business is a wise decision. It will help you extract, transform, and load data to your data storage platform and make better business decisions.
