ETL Use Cases - 8 No Brainer Situations To Use ETL (2023)

What Are the Top 8 ETL Use Cases?

The top use cases for an ETL pipeline are:

1. Centralizing information for data analytics

2. Powering self-service reporting

3. Creating an enterprise data model

4. Streamlining data migration

5. Automating manual workflows

6. Enabling real-time monitoring and alerting

7. Training machine learning models

8. Building data products for external consumption

Before we dive deeper into the top 8 ETL use cases, let's define ETL, summarize the value proposition of a data pipeline, and outline the steps to getting started with data integration.

What are the main components of ETL?

Definition of ETL: Extract, transform, and load (ETL) involves extracting information from your enterprise data sources, transforming the data, and loading the information into your analytics environment.

ETL Value Proposition: ETL processes are critical to any data integration strategy. By centralizing data from disparate sources into your data warehousing environment, an ETL solution makes it simple to conduct complex analysis, build machine learning models, and improve strategic decision-making within your business.

ETL vs. ELT: The main difference between ETL and ELT: ETL pipelines transform data in a staging area before loading into your destinations whereas ELT pipelines load data directly into your destination for you to conduct additional data processing downstream.

Getting Started With ETL: Before you start replicating raw data into your data warehouse or data lake, it's important to identify the mission-critical systems within your company, outline an ETL architecture for moving datasets at scale, and prioritize the organizational workflows that will create the most business value.

Top 8 ETL Use Cases - Deep Dive

1. Centralizing information for data analytics

Centralizing information for data analytics can be an effective way to improve business intelligence and make more informed business decisions. One way to do this is by creating a data repository where all relevant data can be stored and accessed. This can include data from customer relationship management (CRM) systems, SaaS applications, and other sources.

By centralizing this data in a single location, it can be more easily accessed and analyzed to gain insights and inform business decisions. Additionally, using compute resources such as cloud computing can allow for faster and more comprehensive analysis of the data.

Overall, centralizing information for data analytics can help business intelligence teams to support better decision-making.

2. Powering self-service reporting

Self-service reporting allows users to access and analyze data without the need for technical assistance. To power self-service reporting, it is important to have a system in place for extracting data from various source systems and transforming it into a usable format.

This may involve using SQL or other programming languages for data extraction and data transformation. Once the data has been extracted and transformed, it can be visualized using tools such as charts, graphs, and maps to make it easier to understand and draw insights.

By powering self-service reporting in this way, users can more easily access and analyze data to inform decision-making and drive business outcomes.

3. Creating an enterprise data model

Creating an enterprise data model with ETL involves using the ETB process to build a cohesive and comprehensive view of an organization's data. ETL can be used to extract data from various business applications such as CRM systems (e.g. Salesforce), financial systems, and marketing tools.

The extracted data is then transformed to remove duplicates and ensure that it is consistent and accurate. The transformed data is then loaded into a central repository, where it can be used to create an enterprise data model.

This data model provides a comprehensive view of an organization's data and can be used to inform business decisions and support various business applications.

By creating an enterprise data model on top of an ETL pipeline, organizations can more effectively manage and utilize their data to drive business outcomes.

4. Streamlining data migration 

ETL can be used to streamline the process of data migration, particularly when moving data from on-premises systems to the cloud. The process begins by extracting data from a source system, which may include structured or unstructured data.

The extracted data is then transformed, which may involve cleaning, filtering, and organizing the data to make it more usable. The transformed data is then loaded into the target database, which could be a cloud-based data repository or a database on-premises.

By using ETL to streamline data migration, organizations can more efficiently move large amounts of data and ensure that it is properly organized and ready for use in the target system. This can help improve data management and support various business processes.

5. Automating manual workflows

ETL can be used to automate manual workflows by creating data pipelines that can extract data from various sources, transform it into a usable format, and then load it into target systems. This can be especially useful when the data needs to be synced back into applications or delivered to other systems in a specific format.

For example, an ETL pipeline could extract data from a database, transform it to meet the requirements of a CRM system, and then load the data into the CRM via an API. This can help streamline business processes and reduce the need for manual data entry.

By automating manual workflows with ETL, organizations can better address business needs and improve company efficiency.

6. Enabling real-time monitoring and alerting

ETL can be used to enable real-time monitoring and alerting by creating pipelines that continuously extract data from various sources, transform it into a usable format, and then load it into a target system.

This can allow for the data to be processed and analyzed in real time, enabling organizations to monitor and track key metrics and events as they happen.

From there, using reverse ETL can allow organizations to extract data from target systems and load it back into source systems or other databases, enabling them to synchronize data in real time and ensure that all systems have access to the most up-to-date information.

By enabling real-time monitoring and alerting with ETL, organizations can more effectively track and respond to events as they occur, helping to improve decision-making and drive business outcomes.

7. Training machine learning models

Training machine learning models involves using large amounts of data to teach a model to perform a specific task, such as classifying images or predicting outcomes.

ETL can be used to extract data from various sources, cleanse it to remove any errors or inconsistencies, and validate the data to ensure high levels of data quality.

This process is important because the quality of the data used to train a machine-learning model has a significant impact on its performance.

Once the data has been extracted, cleansed, and validated, it can be loaded into a data platform where it can be used to train the machine learning model.

By using ETL to train machine learning models, organizations can ensure that they are using high-quality data to drive better model performance and improve business outcomes.

8. Building data products for external consumption

Building data products for external consumption involves creating tools or applications that allow users outside of an organization to access and analyze data.

ETL for product development is often managed by data engineers who specialize in working with big data and building data pipelines.

Once the data has been prepared, it can be used to build data products such as dashboards or visualizations that allow external users to access and analyze the data.

By building data products for external consumption, organizations can provide valuable insights and analysis to external stakeholders and drive better business outcomes.

How should you evaluate ETL tools?

When selecting an ETL solution, it's important to evaluate:

• Data connectors (prebuilt and custom)

• Support for your analytics environment (cloud data warehouse, data lake, relational database, etc.)

• Extensibility (flexibility to add features and integrations)

• Pricing model (predictability and cost)

• Support (enterprise support and SLAs)

• Ease of use vs. customizability

• On-premise vs. cloud-based

• Proprietary vs. open-source

• Batch vs. real-time processing

The landscape of ETL platforms is fragmented and complex - Here are a few of the tools that are great for Snowflake, BigQuery, Redshift, and PostgreSQL.

Getting Started with ETL: A No Regrets First Step

Looking for an ETL tool you can rely on? Get started with Portable. No credit card required.