At first glance, Data Consolidation may seem dull and boring, and simple enough to achieve. But in reality it is one of the most critical aspects of any Data Integration project. Get it wrong and your data can be rendered almost worthless.
Data Consolidation is hard to achieve, mainly because data is frequently stored in different formats, difficult to access due to arcane data structures that require specialist knowledge and time consuming and expensive.
Far from being simple and boring, it is of great value and also a very tough nut to crack.
If a host system cannot export data in a required standard format, such as CSV or XML, then bespoke mappings must be developed to extract the data.
This can be accomplished in-house by writing a program or by using a data migration tool. In both cases there is a learning curve and onus of ongoing maintenance. This may be acceptable but in most cases is regarded as a ‘non-core’ activity and, with scarcity of resources, most organisations prefer to focus their attention on areas of more strategic impact.
Our approach is to deliver Data Consolidation as a service. Whether it is a one-time consolidation or on-going, we use our expertise coupled with our Transformation Manager (TM) Data Integration platform to create a personalised solution to specific problems.
The key to the longevity of our solution is the ability to update and upgrade the mappings as new sources of data are defined, perhaps with new feeder systems being introduced into the company. With a hand-coded approach this is just not possible and it often requires an almost total rewrite each time. This is time consuming and very expensive and that is why our approach is preferred.
Benefits
An ETL Data Consolidation solution delivers a number of key benefits including faster delivery of the Data Consolidation, massively reduced maintenance burden and greater cost efficiency.