ETL describes the pipeline that gets data from where it is created into where it can be used: extract it from source systems, transform it into a clean and consistent shape, and load it into a warehouse or analytics store. A newer variant, ELT, loads the raw data first and transforms it inside the warehouse, which suits modern cloud data platforms.
The reason this matters is that most organisations’ data is scattered across systems that were never designed to be analysed together. The pipeline is what turns that scattered, inconsistent operational data into something a business can actually decide on — and its reliability is what determines whether the dashboards on top of it can be trusted.
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