Nowadays, most companies’ existence depends on data flow. When plenty of information is generally accessible and one can find almost everything he needs, managing became easier than ever before. The Internet simplifies cooperation – time needed to send and receive requested data gets shorter as more and more institutions computerize their resources. Also, the communication between separate corporation departments became easier – no one needs to send normal letters (or even the office boys) as the process is replaced by e-mails. Although the new ways of communication improved and facilitated managing, the ubiquitous computerization has its significant disadvantages.
The variety of data – as positive phenomenon as possible – got a little bit out of control. The unlimited growth of databases’ size caused mess that often slows down (or even disable) data finding process.
It’s all about effective information storing. Uncategorized data is assigned to different platforms and systems. As a consequence, finding wanted data brings a lot of troubles – user needs to know what data he administers, where it is located (and whether he has proper access), finally how to take them out.
Wrong was someone who thought that the hardest task was making decisions basing on data. No – finding data itself is often much more annoying. But users are not the only ones suffering for databases’ overgrowth. The IT departments – usually responsible for keeping the systems work – have to struggle with data in different formats and systems. ‘Keeping it alive’ is extremely time-consuming what delays the company’s work.
Slow (or sometimes omitted at all) transformation of data causes that it’s usually impossible to provide demanded information in demanded time. Formed divergence between data provided and data really existing in the moment of need harms the IT departments’ image.
To achieve better results, companies invest in external systems – computing power and resources. Not enough power causes lacks of synchronization of data. Transporting information between separate units lasts too long to work effectively. On the other side, computing power increasing – that might be an example solution – is expensive and lead to overgrowth of the operation costs.
Supposing that example company managed to prepare well-working database responsible for supporting designated operation. A lot of money and time got spent. Everything seems wonderful until it comes to another operation. Suddenly it appears that once created system doesn’t really fit the requirements of new operation and the best idea is to create a new system from the beginning. Yes, modifications might be made but there is no single developer common for all parts of the projects, so it demands cooperation of at least a few subjects – that hardly disables the idea.
Some List of ETL Tools
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Here is a list of the most popular comercial and freeware(open-sources) ETL Tools.
Comercial ETL Tools:
- IBM Infosphere DataStage
- Informatica PowerCenter
- Oracle Warehouse Builder (OWB)
- Oracle Data Integrator (ODI)
- SAS ETL Studio
- Business Objects Data Integrator(BODI)
- Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services(SSIS)
- Ab Initio
- Freeware, open source ETL tools:
- Pentaho Data Integration (Kettle)
- Talend Integrator Suite
- CloverETL
- Jasper ETL