Data integration solutions typically advocate that one approach – either ETL or ELT – is better than the other. In reality, both ETL (extract, transform, load) and ELT (extract, load, transform) serve indispensable roles in the data integration space:
- ETL is valuable when it comes to data quality, data security, and data compliance. It can also save money on data warehousing costs. However, ETL is slow when ingesting unstructured data, and it can lack flexibility.
- ELT is fast when ingesting large amounts of raw, unstructured data. It also brings flexibility to your data integration and data analytics strategies. However, ELT sacrifices data quality, security, and compliance in many cases.
Because ETL and ELT present different strengths and weaknesses, many organizations are using a hybrid “ETLT” approach to get the best of both worlds. In this guide, we’ll help you understand the “why, what, and how” of ETLT, so you can determine if it’s right for your use-case.