What is ELT Pipelines?
ELT stands for Extract, Load, Transform. ELT Pipelines is a data processing approach where data is first extracted from various sources, such as databases, APIs, or files. The extracted data is then loaded into a data lakehouse, which is a unified storage and compute architecture that combines the best features of data lakes and data warehouses. Finally, the data is transformed within the data lakehouse to make it suitable for analytics, reporting, machine learning, and other use cases.
How ELT Pipelines works
The ELT process starts with the extraction phase, where data is extracted from multiple sources using connectors or integration tools. This extracted data is then loaded into a data lakehouse, which provides a scalable and cost-effective storage solution for large volumes of data. Once the data is loaded, it undergoes transformations within the data lakehouse using various tools and technologies, such as SQL, scripting languages, or specialized data transformation tools. These transformations can include data cleaning, aggregation, enrichment, and normalization. The transformed data is then made available for analysis and other downstream processes.
Why ELT Pipelines is important
ELT Pipelines offer several benefits to businesses:
- Scalability: ELT Pipelines can handle large volumes of data, making it suitable for big data processing and analytics.
- Flexibility: By separating extraction, loading, and transformation processes, ELT Pipelines provide flexibility in terms of data sources, storage, and transformation technologies.
- Data Lakehouse architecture: ELT Pipelines leverage the data lakehouse architecture, which combines the scalability and cost-effectiveness of data lakes with the processing capabilities of data warehouses.
- Real-time and batch processing: ELT Pipelines can support both real-time and batch processing, allowing businesses to analyze and act upon data in near real-time or perform large-scale analytics on historical data.
The most important ELT Pipelines use cases
ELT Pipelines find applications in various use cases, including:
- Data integration: ELT Pipelines enable organizations to integrate data from diverse sources, such as databases, cloud services, IoT devices, and external APIs.
- Data warehousing: ELT Pipelines can be used to load data into a data warehouse for efficient querying and analysis.
- Data analytics and reporting: ELT Pipelines help transform and prepare data for analytics, enabling businesses to gain valuable insights and generate reports.
- Machine learning and AI: ELT Pipelines provide the necessary data processing capabilities for machine learning and AI applications, such as training predictive models or performing natural language processing tasks.
Other technologies or terms that are closely related to ELT Pipelines
ELT Pipelines share similarities with other data processing approaches, including:
- ETL (Extract, Transform, Load): ETL is a traditional data processing approach where data is first extracted, then transformed outside the target storage system, and finally loaded into the storage system. Unlike ETL, ELT Pipelines leverage the data lakehouse architecture, which allows transformations to be performed within the storage system itself.
- Data lakes: Data lakes are storage repositories that store raw data in its original format. ELT Pipelines can leverage data lakes as a source or target for data processing.
- Data warehouses: Data warehouses are optimized for query performance and analytics. ELT Pipelines can load transformed data into data warehouses for analysis and reporting purposes.
Why Dremio users would be interested in ELT Pipelines
Dremio users, especially those involved in data processing and analytics, would find ELT Pipelines beneficial due to the following reasons:
- Seamless integration: Dremio is a cloud-native data lakehouse platform that seamlessly integrates with ELT Pipelines, allowing users to extract, load, and transform data within a unified environment.
- Scalability and performance: Dremio's distributed architecture enables it to handle large-scale data processing requirements, making it an ideal platform for ELT Pipelines.
- Cost-effectiveness: By leveraging Dremio's data lakehouse capabilities, users can take advantage of the cost-effectiveness of data lakes while benefiting from the processing capabilities of data warehouses, reducing infrastructure costs.
- Data transformation capabilities: Dremio provides a wide range of transformation features and functions that can be utilized within ELT Pipelines, enabling users to manipulate and prepare data for analytics and reporting.
