ETL Tools Overview

A lot of data gets generated every single minute and today, it is a key factor for the success of a business. Therefore, it is essential that such data be processed and transformed accurately. After all, unprocessed and complex information is of no use unless it is interpreted, structured, and analyzed properly.

Here comes into play the role of ETL tools. ETL stands for extraction, transforming, and loading of data. Popular ETL tools help companies extract, transform and load complex datasets into insightful analytics. Data is first extracted from multiple systems and sources. It then gets transformed using various validation rules.

Data transformation is important for putting similar kinds of data under one category as well as generating new calculated values. Data so transformed is loaded finally into its target database. The best ETL tools for big data help structure and organize complex information to help companies derive critical market insight from them. 

ETL platforms offer complete data management and business intelligence solutions to companies looking forward to scaling their businesses. Some of the key modules provided are automated data mapping and migration capabilities, data integration as well as schema detection. 

With the best on-premise and cloud ETL tools, you would find other functionalities too. Some of these are transformation codes, target definition, data cleansing, debugging abilities, scripting environment, and batch processing. 

Why You Need An ETL Tool

Manage ETL workloads and execute these processes using ETL software solutions. Let us understand why ETL tools for big data are important:

• Time-efficiency

ETL tools help with saving time. Popular ETL tools in the market perform this amazing job of automatically transforming, collecting, and consolidating all the available data. This saves businesses a lot of time and resources because now you don't have to import any data manually. 

• Simplified data processing

ETL tools for big data help clean and process all of the complex data so that formatting the same is never a time-consuming mechanism. This becomes important when you have diverse data coming from different sources with their own distinct customer IDs, addresses, and names. 

• Decreased probability for errors

Paid and free ETL tools help automate the entire data processing cycle. This in turn reduces the probability of errors of all kinds. Error in the data processing cycle is something businesses can't afford because one mistake and your entire calculation are ruined. For instance, if you make a mistake in doing sales entry, what would happen is all the next steps would include this error. The result is wrong calculations, which any company can't afford. The best ETL tools in the market ensure that such errors are eliminated completely.

• Improved ROI

The best ETL tools integrate easily into your data architecture and scale as you accumulate all data for later analysis. Once this happens, all issues like referential integrity, missing values, dates, and incorrect code values get resolved. As a result, only the right information for business intelligence gets produced. Paid and open-source ETL tools thus provide accurate data analysis for quick decision-making.

Popular ETL tools in the market perform other business functions:

• Schema mapping & detection: ETL software solutions use robust algorithms for detecting the schema of all incoming data. Once detected, these can be replicated too in the data warehouse automatically.
• Streaming architecture: All data that has been extracted so far need to be loaded too. On-premise and cloud ETL tools have an inbuilt streaming architecture for real-time data uploading. 
• Enterprise-Grade Security: The best ETL tools support HIPPA, GDPR, and SOC II compliance. You can also do granular monitoring of data through this security feature.
• Data transformation: The data extracted so far has to be transferred and transformed. ETL tools in the data warehouse are designed to handle this procedure of transferring data between a warehouse and an internal database. 
• Mapping settings: The best ETL tools offer mapping settings with powerful expressions, lookups, and constants for doing data transformations.
• Synchronization logs: Paid and open-source ETL tools provide synchronization logs for monitoring the data migration process. Those synchronization logs can be unidirectional or bidirectional.

Top 10 ETL Tools for Big Data Management

The best ETL tools are data management solutions designed for optimizing a business’s performance.  Here is an ETL tools list to help you select the right solution for your business requirements. 

• Talend

Talend open source ETL tool offers features and functionalities for managing data governance, design and productivity. Aside from Talend's excellent data integration capabilities, companies prefer this free ETL tool for its friendly user interface. You can also take advantage of this application’s pre-built integrations as well as on-premise/cloud support.

• Xplenty

Xplenty cloud ETL tool performs data integration by uniting different data sources. The best part about using the popular ETL tool is it offers field-level encryption for both decrypting and encrypting data fields. You can also develop data pipelines between different sources and destinations using the Xplenty ETL tool. What is even better is you can access here multiple data stores for better integration.

• Informatics PowerCenter

Informatics PowerCenter is a database-neutral application that helps businesses manage all kinds of databases- SQL and non-SQL. Besides its data transformation abilities, you can also use this ETL software for prebuilt connectors to integrate with your existing SaaS applications. The unique selling point about Informatica PowerCenter is that it’s an ETL tool for big data processing.

• Skyvia

Skyvia is a cloud ETL tool meant for integrating, migrating as well as backing up all the existing big data. You can also use this ETL software for building data pipelines for managing data warehouses. The software also offers connection tools for synchronizing the inventory of retail businesses with multiple channels. It is because of Skyvia's no code integration capabilities that everyone from beginners to professionals can use the software with ease.

• Oracle Data Integrator

Oracle Data Integrator can be used for all kinds of data integration preferences. These can be high-performance/high-volume batch loads, trickle-feed integrations or SOA-enabled data services. You can use this ETL tool for big data management and data warehousing.

• Striim

Striim ETL software offers data integration in real-time for helping enterprises build intelligent and custom data pipelines. The application also provides advanced routing for the streaming of data. It provides table-level metrics along with single-click access for catalogs, schemes, and tables. You can also use Striim ETL software for database replication as well as schema migration.

• Matallion

Matallion cloud ETL tool features a low code interface for doing data integration. It also offers prebuilt connectors for efficient data warehouse management. The best part about using Matallion is it offers different workflow automation modules for creating time, logic, and event-based scheduling. Coding custom scripts is easy too as this popular ETL tool supports hand-coded scripting.

• Pentaho

Pentaho cloud ETL software is a user-friendly application most relied on for building powerful data pipelines. The software offers graphical tools that help with the integration of data from different sources. Along with data integration, you can also use Pentaho for data mining, reporting, extraction, and transformation.

• AWS Glue

AWS Glue ETL tool has been designed for handling not only big data but also analytic workloads. The software features an ETL engine for automatically generating scripts in python for all ETL processes. Additionally, in AWS Glue, you would find a metadata repository, which contains references for all targets and data sources.

• Panoply

If you are looking for a code-free connection for your data warehouse, Panoply may be the right solution. Syncing, storing and accessing data from the database is quite easy with the Panoply ETL tool. You can further use this application for connecting with BI visualization tools, managing data pipelines as well as consolidating the customer/client engagement data.

What Are the Different ETL Tools Examples & Types

Data management is easy with an ETL tool and so is data processing. The best part is that popular paid and free ETL tools let you perform these tasks in real-time. The best ETL platforms help save time and resources. There are different types of ETL tools and some of these are:

• Batch ETL Tools

Batch ETL tools process data in batches for acquiring data from their source systems. All data is therefore loaded into a repository in batches. The method is highly cost-effective and saves businesses precious hours.

• Real-Time ETL Tools

Under this ETL tools type, the data so extracted is loaded into the target system only after it’s thoroughly enriched and cleansed. Real-time ETL tools also support an improved time to insights, something that makes it a preferable choice for businesses. Stream processing and distributed message queues are other functionalities that you can expect here. 

• On-Premise ETL Tools

On-premise ETL tools configure all data and repository on-premise. On-premise ETL tools are often implemented because they offer greater data security. Another advantage of using on-premise ETL tools is that they maintain all data in-house. This is something that helps companies comply easily with government and industry regulations.

• Cloud ETL Tools

Data transferring from apps is quick and easy with cloud-based ETL tools. Businesses thus prefer cloud deployment of ETL tools for their agility and flexibility. You can further access the features like intelligent schema detection and real-time support.

What Are the Benefits of ETL Software

• Easy data management

This is one of the foremost advantages of ETL tools that they are quite easy to use. All you have to do is select the data source and the software automatically identifies the type and format of all data. Setting up rules for extracting this data is also automatic and so is their final processing.

• Superior business intelligence

For reaching data-driven decisions, ETL tools are quite useful. All this is possible because the software makes data access, extraction, and analysis procedure quite simple yet elaborate.

• Managing complex data

ETL tools for big data can very well handle complex datasets with ease. The ETL software for this purpose offers options like data changes, string manipulation and integration for handling varied data sets.

• Operational resilience

You can be assured of a resilient ETL process after deploying popular ETL software solutions. Popular ETL software tools come with the functionality for handling errors that make the data extraction, transformation, and loading cycle a well-instrumented mechanism.

• Visual flow

GUI or graphical user interface offers this drag/drop functionality for visualizing data processes. ETL tools are also based on such GUI or graphical user interfaces for providing the visual flow for the system's logic.

• Simplified data warehousing

Popular ETL tools are based on performance-enhancing technology. This simplifies the procedure for building superior quality data warehouses.

• Governance

ETL tools with a high credit score offer the governance feature for ensuring the accuracy and integrity of all data. With the data in place, managing regulatory compliances and metadata is easy too. 

• Scalable

The best ETL solutions can be scaled easily to keep up with the business requirement. Data extraction processes can be scaled too depending on whether it is a large or small dataset.

What's the Use of ETL Tools Among the Enterprises

• Constructing data warehouses

Data warehouses store all crucial business data. However, before loading such critical data into a warehouse, it is important that it is accurate. Enterprises depend on the best ETL tools to cleanse, extract and transform all types of data so that it can be stored in data warehouses as the key database. 

• Data migration

ETL solutions help move data to the modern system from the legacy ones. The software for a smooth data migration also makes sure that the source data's scheme and format is compatible with the new target system. The entire data migration process is important for those enterprises that are planning to upgrade their systems by moving big data from one database to another.

• Pushdown optimization

The data that is transformed before entering a destination system is placed in a staging area. Enterprises depend on this procedure for handling large data sets. The best ETL software for big data also ensures that there is less strain on a tool server to avoid system crashes.

What Are the Factors to Consider for ETL Tools Comparison

• Connectivity: You have to ensure that the chosen ETL tool connects with all data sources of your business. It has to have inbuilt connectors for your databases, marketing applications, sales, and file formats so that the data extraction, as well as loading, is easy.
• Simple user interface: An ETL software with a simple user interface is both reliable and friendly. This also means that bringing the data pipelines to life is a quick and hassle-free process.
• Performance optimization: Performance optimization gives popular ETL tools a high degree of scalability and flexibility. Performance optimization is available mostly in the form of push-down optimizations.
• Guaranteed data consistency: As a result of the ETL software's error handling capacity, you can be assured of consistency in all data extracted. It is thus important to ensure that the ETL tool you select has smooth data transformation capabilities with no data loss.
• Data access: Data access in real-time is important for quick time-to-insights. Such timely insights are essential for deriving business intelligence and reaching data-driven decisions.
• Inbuilt monitoring system: Built-in monitoring systems offer updates in real-time for streamlined process execution. You have to ensure that there is one such monitoring system in the ETL tool that you select.