Introduction to BI ETL

BI, or business intelligence, refers to a set of processes and technologies used to transform raw data into meaningful, usable information and obtain actionable insight into business operations and opportunities. BI ETL refers to the processes by which data is extracted from multiple sources, transformed into the proper format or structure for querying, reporting, and analysis, and loaded into a data warehouse or other type of centralized data repository. BI ETL is commonly implemented through the use of an ETL tool that enables developers to write ETL code and perform other ETL development and management tasks.

The challenges of implementing BI ETL and data warehousing


With the advent of big data and the demand for timely, accurate data across globally distributed enterprises, businesses are finding batch-oriented BI ETL and an inflexible approach to data warehousing can result in processing bottlenecks, costly project delays, and an inability to react swiftly to unexpected changes in the marketplace. Business users want real-time insight while IT teams—overwhelmed by ballooning data stores, shrinking batch windows, and long-running BI ETL tasks—are struggling to process and deliver the freshest data possible.

One problem is that BI ETL tools simply can't process the streams of incoming data fast enough. The volume and velocity of data enterprises are handling today seem to necessitate a real-time ETL solution. Another problem is that setting up, making adjustments to, and updating data warehouses in accordance with changing business requirements is time-consuming and risky. While ETL tools can help teams design and maintain BI ETL processes, they cannot automate and expedite other complex data warehousing processes.

Shifting from batch-oriented BI ETL to real-time data integration and agile analytics


At Qlik, we've developed unique solutions that can help you overcome the challenges involved in BI and data warehousing projects today. With Qlik Compose®, you can build and manage agile data warehouses faster and easier, optimize and expedite ETL offload tasks, and shift from time-consuming, batch-oriented BI ETL processes to real-time data integration.

Qlik Compose is an agile data warehouse automation tool that simplifies and accelerates data warehousing development. With our intuitive drag-and-drop interface, you can design and refine data models and setup and schedule ETL tasks quickly and easily. Compose will automatically create, populate, and deploy changes to your data warehouse—generating data mapping and ETL commands in accordance with best practices for higher quality and consistency.

Compose seamlessly integrates with Qlik Replicate®, our high-performance data replication and data ingestion tool, featuring TurboStream CDC (change data capture) technology and in-memory transaction streaming. With Replicate, you can efficiently migrate data from any major RDBMS or mainframe system to your data warehouse, cloud platform, or big data platform.

Learn more about data integration with Qlik