Systems | Development | Analytics | API | Testing

May 2021

What is Data as a Service (DaaS)?

As the amount of data companies are faced with snowballs, the need for efficient data governance grows. An increasing number of organizations are turning to cloud service providers for data management. In this context, data as a service, often referred to as DaaS, is becoming an essential tool for managing data integration, data storage, and data analytics.

What is File Transfer Protocol?

Transferring files between two or more machines is an essential part of the ETL (extract, transform, load) process. Of course, there are multiple ways to move data, including flat file databases. For example, you can physically copy the data onto a USB drive or send it to the recipient via email. But methods like these are far less efficient than sending data via FTP. So what is FTP exactly, and how do you use it to transfer files and data? Keep reading for all the answers.

The Complete Guide to GDPR Compliance

The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a landmark piece of legislation that affects how organizations can handle, process, and store the personal data of European Union (EU) citizens and residents. But what does the GDPR require exactly, and how can you be sure that your organization complies with it? We go over everything you need to know in this all-in-one guide to GDPR compliance.

Say Goodbye to Data Quality with ELT

ELT is a three-step process that first extracts raw, structured, and unstructured data from source databases, applications, data stores, and other repositories. It then loads that data into a data lake and transforms it as needed by analysts. Since it doesn't move the data to an intermediate staging area or transform it before loading, the extraction process is speedy. You don’t need to pick and choose what data loads into the data lake or wait for it to be processed.

PII Masking Can Protect Your Business

Businesses large and small depend on access to information in order to make smarter, data-driven decisions. And much of that data is personal, sensitive, or confidential. So how can you balance this demand for big data with the need to protect the individuals whom this data describes? When it comes to personally identifiable information (PII), there are multiple very good reasons why you should keep it securely under lock and key.

ETLT with Snowflake, dbt, and Xplenty

What do Xplenty, Snowflake software, and dbt (data build tool) have in common? When used together, they merge the best of ETL (extract, transform, load) and ELT (extract, load, transform) into a powerful, flexible and cost-effective ETLT (extract, transform, load, transform) strategy. In this guide, we’ll show you how to create an ETLT strategy with Xplenty, Snowflake software, and dbt. But first, we’ll explain why you'd want to use this strategy to build an ETLT data transformation stack.

How to Launch Your New Data Engineering Strategy

When you secure a new data engineering position, it’s important to get off on the right foot. You need to respond to new data sources, data types, data sets, and applications efficiently. In the era of Big Data, this can be more than challenging. During this early stage of your job transition, you need to impress, and you can do this by re-thinking your data engineering strategy.

10 Best Data Analysis Tools for Data Management

Data analysis is a key component for operating a successful business in today's tech-savvy world. When analyzing data sets, however, every business has its own needs. While some companies employ data scientists to work with complex big data, others have fewer and less complicated data sources that even non-technical users can navigate. Your specific needs will influence the type of tool your company chooses for data management.

The Ultimate PII Checklist

Data breaches can happen to any company, regardless of size or technical resources. In April 2021, Facebook’s reputation took a massive hit when a data breach impacted more than half a billion users. The worst kind of data breach involves personally identifiable information (PII). PII is essentially any data that contains sensitive details about real people, such as customers and employees.

How to Establish an Effective BI Security Strategy

Business intelligence (BI) tools have been a shot in the arm of the enterprise. Teams can create their own visualizations and enjoy self-service analytics, without needing IT to compile reports or wrangle big data. But, of course, there’s a catch. BI tools expose data to a wider range of people, which means there are new issues of BI security (BISEC) and privacy to think about, especially in the age of GDPR. Here’s what you need to know.

5 Reasons to Use Heroku and ETL

ETL tools and Heroku Connect both offer bidirectional data connections to Salesforce. So it would be natural to assume that you only need one or the other for your Salesforce integration. But, in fact, each tool has its own particular strengths that make the two systems complementary. Heroku is a software development platform and cloud service provider that empowers developers who build, deploy and scale web applications.

Security and Business Intelligence: Why it Matters

Companies deal with high volumes of data every day. In fact, 51% of businesses realize a positive difference in their bottom line by using their business intelligence (BI) to predict customer trends. According to one source, the BI market may reach close to $30 billion before the end of 2022. With so much money going into data management and so much resulting from it, the need for effective cybersecurity measures continues to grow by the day.

6 Tips for Configuring an ETL Solution in Salesforce

Salesforce is the world's #1 CRM (customer relationship management) platform. The service provides access to valuable data by logging and collecting customer interactions, regardless of the channel in which they take place. Whether it gets the information from phone calls, website transactions, or social media posts, Salesforce delivers customer data in real-time so business owners can gain essential insights.

What is HIPAA, and Why is It Important?

Healthcare information is perhaps the most important data in our lives. Your health records can contain your medical history, results of tests and scans, and details of current health insurance. This data is a special class of personally identifiable information, and HIPAA is the law that protects it.

Why Business Intelligence is a Security Risk

Business intelligence (BI) software, such as Microsoft Power Bi, allows organizations to leverage big data and make better business decisions. Select Hub reports that 48 percent of companies place high or critical importance on these solutions. However, BI tools introduce a level of security risk that businesses must address.

The Five Types of Data Integration

Data integration is crucial in today’s business world. Business data comes via many sources, from internal databases to clicks on a website. Being able to access all your data in one place helps your business make better, faster decisions. But how do you integrate all your data, and what’s the best way to do it? Here we discuss five data integration methods, how they work and why businesses continue to choose them.

The 7 Best Reporting Tools for 2021

Reporting tools solve a key problem for businesses by enabling them to communicate data in a way that is accessible, easy-to-understand, and useful for both frontline staff and management teams. These tools take raw data and turn it into tables, charts, and graphs ready for consumption, turning complicated data into visuals that better enable users to spot patterns and trends.

Security and ELT - A Tragedy

Extract, Load, Transform, or ELT, is a process that extracts data from the source, loads it directly into a data warehouse or data lake, and then transforms it to make it available for business intelligence tools. It supports all data types, from raw to structured. ELT is a popular way to ingest large volumes of raw data quickly, but it brings many security concerns with it.

5 Ways to Improve Data Quality with Teradata

In 1979, Teradata began life as a collaboration between Caltech and Citibank. Today, this enterprise software group is all about redefining business intelligence tools and data management. The Teradata Database is now the Teradata Vantage Advanced SQL Engine, The name not only highlights the evolution of the company but also recognizes that tech consumers now expect more from their tools.

MongoDB vs. MySQL: Detailed Comparison of Performance and Speed

MongoDB and MySQL are similar is some ways, but they also have some obvious differences. Perhaps the most obvious one is that MongoDB is a NoSQL database, while MySQL only responds to commands written in SQL. Potential users may want to examine MongoDB vs. MySQL in the areas of performance and speed. The following article will help you understand the differences, as well as the pros and cons of each database.

5 Tips on Avoiding FTP Security Issues

Flat files are files that contain a representation of a database (aptly named flat file databases), usually in plain text with no markup. CSV files, which separate data fields using comma delimiters, are one common and well-known type of flat file; other types include XML and JSON. Thanks to their simple architecture and lightweight footprint, flat files are a popular choice for representing and storing information.

Talend vs. Xplenty: Comparison and Review

The Talend Product Suite tries to be a one-stop-shop for everything data. Whether you need an ESB, iPaaS, API Gateway, or ETL platform, Talend has a tool for it. Xplenty, on the other hand, is a targeted solution that focuses on ETL only. It's an enterprise-grade ETL solution that empowers non-tech-savvy users to build sophisticated data integrations. Both Talend and Xplenty are powerful ETL solutions with excellent reputations and high functionality.