Selecting the right Data Integration tool

What is Data Integration?

Data integration is the process of retrieving data from multiple source systems and combining it in such a way that it can yield consistent, comprehensive, current and correct information for business reporting and analysis.

Data integration is challenging. The number of sources and types of data continue to grow, and the data is often autonomous and may be in a variety of formats.

Is Data Integration a necessity?

Just think about it, the data integration market is expected to grow from USD 6.44 Billion in 2017 to USD 12.24 Billion by 2022, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 13.7%.

The major factor driving this market is the high demand for tools that can combine numerous heterogeneous data sources, enabling users to get a consolidated view of data and extract valuable business insights.

The growing importance of data analytics and BI applications in taking strategic business decision has made data integration’s role crucial. From collecting data, transforming it into useful insights and delivering it to the users require effective data integration tools.

How do you find the right Data Integration tool?

It is not an easy task to go and find the best tool out there.

“The goal is to turn data into information, and information into insight.”

Once you figure out what are your needs and what projects you want to start with, you can start doing your own research by googling data integration (ETL) tools or asking around what others have been using, what they would use, etc.

Things to consider while choosing an ETL tool:

• Price: some ETL tools are free, but there are hidden costs, and actual costs. Prices vary according to usage. The more money you spend, the lower the unit price. So most vendors have tailored prices, very few have standard prices across all usages/volumes. The key point here is to know your limits.
• Scalability: as data sources, volumes, and other complexities increase, scaling and managing ETL process becomes increasingly difficult. ETL tools, especially cloud-based ETL tools, remove this obstacle as they scale as your needs grow.
• Data Sources: an ability to connect to the sources that you need now and could potentially want. Think of it as an investment in your data journey.
• Simplicity: the end users must be able to devote a little extra time to learn their way around point-and-click interfaces in an ETL tool so that they are the primary ones in charge of the tool. With cloud-based ETL tools, one tool can be used to manage the entire process, reducing extra layers of dependencies.
• Real-time: building a real-time ETL process manually is a challenge. With ETL tools handling this for you, having real-time data at your fingertips, from sources throughout the organization, becomes a lot easier.
• Maintenance: instead of your development team constantly fixing bugs and errors, making use of ETL tools means that maintenance is handled automatically, as patches and updates propagate seamlessly and automatically.
• Security: the chosen ETL tool must have high-security standards and ensure that you are on the right side of compliance.

There are a broad variety of ETL tools available, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. Gaining an understanding of these differences can help you choose the best ETL tool for your needs.

Data Integration can save the day

It is always a pleasure to get feedback from happy customers – and the road to customer satisfaction in the data integration business is long. To ensure satisfaction, we work with you closely from the very beginning, when you just research your different alternatives.

A data integration project requires commitment and great communication from both parties – when it is given, investing in an integration platform can be the best decision you have ever made.

We provide you with the product and solution demos, explain core features of the platform, answer your technical team’s questions, scope the first pilot together, define how we should move forward from there and the goal is always to develop the best possible solution.

Ready to get started?

Contact us  or request a demo to get your data integration project up and running in minutes.