Data Pipeline
A data pipeline consists of a series of processes. These processes moves data from the source system to the destination system.
Stages in Data Pipeline
The following are the typical stages in a data pipeline:
- Extraction: Data extraction involves accessing various sources. These sources include APIs, scrapped web pages, flat files, or databases. Data extraction helps collect information.
- Cleaning: The next step is to clean the data. This may involve removing duplicates, handling missing values, fixing data inconsistencies, normalizing data, converting data types, and removing outliers.
- Transformation: After cleaning the data, we perform data transformation. Data transformation involves aggregation, sorting, filtering, joining, pivoting, splitting, sampling, and windowing.
- Validation: The cleaned and transformed data is either stored in a central repository or is used for specific business purposes. The transformed data used through a central repository is standardized. The standardized data acts as the reference. For standardization, data needs to be validated against the specifications.
- Curation: Data curation is the process of data enrichment. Data is enriched for specific business purposes. This enrichment process must meet the specific business or project requirement. This involves data blending, data modeling, data enrichment, and metadata enrichment.
- Load: Data Loading is a process of loading processed data into storage locations. These locations are accessible to intended recipients. This could involve writing the information into a database. Or storing it on a filesystem. Or transfer it to another system.
- Analysis: Data loaded in the destination system is further analyzed for specific business needs. This involves running queries, performing statistical analyses, or training machine learning models.
- Visualization: Data loaded into the system helps visualize the data. This is done through charts, graphs, or maps. This helps better understand and communicate the findings from the analysis.
- Maintenance: It is important to monitor a data pipeline for errors. If there are any errors we make the necessary adjustments. This involves updating the pipeline based on changes in the source data or taking other appropriate measures.
It is important to note that transforming a dataset also involves cleaning. This can lead to confusion during data processing. So, it is essential to document the process clearly. Then it is important to follow the document to cleanse and transform data.
Summary
“Information is the oil of the 21st century, and analytics is the combustion engine.”
Peter Sondergaard, Senior Vice President and Global Head of Research at Gartner, Inc.
A data pipeline is a key part of any organization’s data infrastructure. It helps to automate the process of moving data from its sources to the systems and tools that need it. This allows their more efficient use with lower risk of error.
In addition, a data pipeline helps ensure desired quality and reliability. For example it is useful for data cleaning and transformation. This can help to ensure that the data is accurate, consistent, and usable for a variety of purposes.
Overall, a data pipeline is an essential part of any organization’s data infrastructure. It helps to ensure that the data is accurate, reliable, and accessible. This is critical for making informed business decisions. It also drives the organization’s goals and objectives.
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