Tech Solution: Extract, Transform, and Load Tools
Companies have valuable data languishing unused in multiple areas; moving that information from one place to another--either from application to application or into a data warehouse--is the job of extract, transform, and load (ETL) tools. ETL solutions extract (read) data from a source, transform (convert) it to a desired format, and load (move) that information into a targeted database. These solutions are designed to access a wide variety of data sources, including relational databases, flat files, and app repositories. ETL providers are starting to support SOA capabilities to minimize the workload associated with data formatting and coding.
Group 1 Software Data Flow Data Integration Solution
Delivery Model: installed software
Price: Pricing starts at approximately $30,000 per CPU on Windows; $35,000 per CPU on UNIX.
Business Benefits: Data Flow brings together information from across the enterprise into integrated data hubs. Businesses then build data warehouses and provide more rapid query, analysis, and reporting functionality required for successful BI and app-integration initiatives. BI and analytics application initiatives are enhanced, providing companies with a single, real-time view of the business; disparate data sources are integrated and operational systems function with improved accuracy.
Functionality: Data Flow is a single-source solution capable of performing traditional ETL or enterprise information integration initiatives. It uses an intuitive interface with a visual development environment to speed the process of data transformation. Users can preview results of data integration without having to load the resulting data into the target database. A processing network lets users join heterogeneous data sources without writing the data to an intermediate staging area.
Contact: Group 1 Software at 888-413-6763; or visit www.g1.com.
Informatica PowerCenter 8
Delivery Model: installed software
Price: Pricing starts at $140,000 and depends on customer IT environment and functionality needs.
Business Benefits: Informatica PowerCenter is a unified enterprise data integration platform that allows companies to scale to meet growing data volumes cost-effectively. Companies can reduce IT costs and increase developer and development team productivity with a codeless development environment while streamlining business operations and processes. PowerCenter also lays the foundation for real-time data access and metadata analysis and reporting by synchronizing data across multiple operational systems.
Functionality: PowerCenter uses a metadata-driven architecture to transfer structured, unstructured, and semistructured files, and relational, mainframe, and standards-based data-to-data warehouses and data stores. Developers and data stewards can standardize and reuse data definitions across various platforms and projects without having to recode the information.
Contact: Informatica at 650-385-5149; email at federal@informatica.com; or visit www.informatica.com.
Oracle Warehouse Builder Enterprise ETL
Delivery Model: installed software
Price: Pricing starts at $10,000 per CPU, or $200 per user.
Business Benefits: Companies can design and manage corporate metadata hierarchies to ensure sound data quality practices. Data stewards can migrate data from legacy systems, allowing for the construction of data warehouses to accelerate query, analysis, and reporting for successful BI and application integration. Raw data taken from disparate data sources is cleansed to become quality information.
Functionality: Data stewards can measure defects in data prior to and during profiling and creating a data warehouse or BI application. Once completed, Warehouse Builder can automatically derive business rules and correction mappings to clean data, drive quality indices, and use auditors to continuously monitor data quality. A new Data Object Editor allows users to create, edit, and configure relational and dimensional data objects, enabling the data modeler to use a single interface.
Contact: Oracle at 800-633-0738; or visit www.oracle.com.
Contact Assistant Editor Colin Beasty at cbeasty@destinationCRM.com.