The Complete Guide to ETL with Teradata

Transferring data is a hassle if you don't have the right tools, particularly when you're transferring from multiple sources or in various formats. Fortunately, you can use tools to make the entire ETL process simpler and less prone to error. Platforms like Teradata make it easy to get your data where it needs to go.

What is Teradata?

Teradata is a cloud data analytics platform that provides a multi-cloud architecture, giving you the option of transferring your data just about anywhere. You can use public clouds such as Google Cloud, Azure, and AWS, or you can use the Teradata database as the destination for your ELT processes.

The company provides multi-source data integration plus fastload options for companies looking for a better way to upload data to a cloud data warehouse. Using ETL, the company offers solutions for those interested in storing their data offsite with Teradata utilities. 

What is ETL?

ETL (extract, transform, load) is the process of transporting data from one or many sources to a single data storage place. This process runs millions of times daily around the world, and you've likely already been a part of it—whether or not you knew it.

Essentially, you have data at the original source system, and this where the ETL process staging area begins. The original source may be an application, a computer in your office, or another database, either virtual or physical. You may even have data coming from multiple sources. This is actually quite common when the goal is to combine everything in one place.

Once you extract the files from the original source, they need to be transformed before you can move them to the target system. You first prepare the data for moving to the new database. This requires cleaning it up and eliminating any non-essential bits. Then you combine the info in the correct order and finally load it into the target database.

How do you do all of this? While you can do it manually, that would take a very long time. ETL tools use scripting to make the entire process painless. All you do is let the tool know which data to grab and where to put it. The tool handles the rest. Teradata is one such tool and to make it even more useful, you can integrate Integrate.io with it to increase bandwidth and efficiency.

Challenges Associated with ETL

End-to-end data processing isn’t always that simple. With technology, things can always go wrong, so you need to consider the potential challenges and effects on data quality. It’s a complex process, and the following challenges may become issues unless you plan for them.

Scaling Up

As your business grows, so will your data flow. It’s possible to move small batches early on, but you need to consider what will happen when your company is 10 times the size it currently is—or 1,000 times its current size. How scalable is your current multi-load process? Will it work for big data or only for small amounts? Look for a processor that will let you amp up the amount of data you can transfer without creating bottlenecks.

The cloud makes it easy to adjust the size of your data warehouse. If you are still fairly small and only require minimal data storage, then you don’t need to worry much, but it’s essential that your business have room to expand. After all, growth is a major goal of most businesses.

Managing Multiple Data Sources

Not all methods of ETL can handle multiple or diverse data sources. When you have a variety of file types coming in from flat files, real-time sources, streams, and other places, the process can become very complicated. Depending on the data type, you may need to batch the transformations or just stream them. Finding a system that will manage the various data types efficiently can be a challenge.

Accurate Data Transformation

A huge issue for ETL is ensuring that all the data correctly transforms. If even one piece of data turns up duplicated or corrupted or suffers another mishap, you could lose your business information. It’s critical that any ETL service you employ uses data accuracy testing to eliminate potential issues before they become a problem.

ETL tools are a far better method of transforming data because the margin for error when doing it manually is so high. 

Benefits of ETL with Teradata

When you use Teradata, you immediately reduce many of the potential issues with ETL. For example, if you've experienced data loss, due to corrupted or duplicate files, that problem should diminish when using a platform like Teradata. The platform checks for duplicates and works with files in a way that avoids corruption.

It is also scalable, so you'll be able to use it from the very start of your business right up until it has expanded one hundred times. Whatever level you need to manage your ETL on, Teradata offers infinite scalability, which makes this an excellent choice for businesses.

You have a tool that will provide you with accurate data transformation. It can handle diverse files from multiple sources and will move those to the destination of your choosing, including public or private clouds. If the files are in different formats, that's also something you can work on within Teradata. This allows you to relax and focus on what you do best—running your company.

Keep in mind that while Teradata can help reduce the issues faced with managing your data flow, it's still not perfect. Integrate.io is a good option to work with Teradata. This platform allows you to easily extract and analyze data from a wide variety of systems, while Teradata keeps the information safe in the cloud.

Conclusion

These days, companies are turning to ETL more and more thanks to the availability of cloud data warehousing. Companies like Integrate.io give you plenty of reasons to use ETL with Teradata to facilitate the remote storage of all your data. Many businesses prefer this over using a manual ETL method.

While ETL can be an effective way to speed up your data transformation and loading, it can also be a little challenging. Using Teradata with Integrate.io reduces the challenges and keeps things as easy for you as possible. For business intelligence, making excellent choices is essential. Choosing an ETL tool may just be one of the most important things you do.

How Integrate.io Can Help

Integrate.io took a serious look at the world of ETL and developed an accurate system to ensure your data makes it safely to its destination. We’d like to help you get to know our services. When you're ready for an efficient and cost-effective ETL tool, contact us today.