Data Integration

Data integration is the art and science of combining data from disparate data sources for particular business purposes.

These purposes include
> support for data warehousing operations such as extract, transform and load (ETL) tasks
> support for real-time and batch application interfaces
> support for performing operational tasks across the enterprise

Integral to Data Integration is the concept of Data Quality. As data is being moved from one system to another, the quality of that data can be enhanced many folds by cleansing it, enriching it with information from external systems (such as demographics or zip code-specific data), removing redundant data (deduplication) and labeling the data appropriately (generating metadata). Moving data between systems can be challenging due to the volatility and volume of data in the source system. To aid with this, Data Integration can take advantage of change data capture (CDC) technologies to access only the data rows that changed among billions, thereby speeding DI operations.

Our Toolbox

SAP BusinessObjects Data Services is a combination of data integration and ETL tools (built around BusinessObjects Data Integrator) that moves data between applications, databases, and other data stores – for a complete view of structured and unstructured data across the enterprise. SAP's data integration software can help build an agile, trusted data foundation that meets the organization’s complex information needs.

Talend Data Integration is open source software that provides data integration, data management, enterprise application integration and big data software and solutions. Specific tools within it's stack include Talend Open Studio for Data Integration, Talend Open Studio for ESB & Talend Enterprise ESB, Talend Open Studio for Data Quality and Talend Open Studio for MDM & Talend Enterprise MDM.