Data Overload is a Challenge
Data moves through organizations in a constant state, going from one individual, department, or office to the next. As new and different data sources like social media and wearables become part of the data pool that businesses collect and analyze for decision-making, data warehousing processes are becoming increasingly complex.
And while many tools exist to automate data warehousing processes, the problem is that most have significant limitations. Many of the enterprise data warehouse solutions on the market today come with native scheduling capabilities that are typically limited in functionality, leaving IT to rely on error-prone and time-consuming scripts to pass data and manage dependencies between systems.
As the process changes or updates are made, scripts become brittle and break, resulting in outdated workflows that bring data warehousing to a halt. As a result, the burden on IT’s shoulders is getting heavier because IT must streamline the collection of data from a variety of sources and make it usable in a variety of formats to hundreds and thousands of different users throughout the business.
IT Automation for Data Warehousing
The most important part of any data warehousing project is ensuring data is loaded at the right times and in the right order. Workload automation helps pass critical data and manage dependencies both within the data warehouse and outside of it, allowing organizations to create true end-to-end workflows across the entire enterprise. One ActiveBatch user we’ve seen achieve this kind of end-to-end automation is SUBWAY®.
IT Automation Improves Data Warehouse Orchestration
SUBWAY® relies on the timely processing of data from its more than 40,000 restaurants worldwide. The foundation for this processing is a data warehousing project that involves Information being passed between a collection of data sources, legacy platforms, and a Teradata Data Warehouse Appliance.
Before implementing IT automation for data warehousing processes, SUBWAY® was relying on a disparate collection of SQL servers to schedule SSIS and DTS packages to integrate a legacy OpenVMS system, a newer .NET/SQL platform, and a data warehouse solution. This was creating problems for the IT team as they found it was difficult to manage the dependencies between these different applications and platforms, resulting in manual hand-offs that slowed operations.
With ActiveBatch, the team is now able to dynamically manage dependencies from a single point of control. For instance, using event triggers, the team can automate the running of the data warehouse load to execute only after the OpenVMS and .NET platforms are populated and synchronized.
Learn more about how you can automate your ETL and data warehousing processes with our video on simplifying scheduling for PowerCenter workflows:
