ETL Process in Data

Warehouse
Chirayu Poundarik
Outline
 ETL
 Extraction
 Transformation
 Loading
ETL Overview
 Extraction Transformation Loading – ETL
 To get data out of the source and load it into the data
warehouse – simply a process of copying data from one
database to other
 Data is extracted from an OLTP database, transformed
to match the data warehouse schema and loaded into
the data warehouse database
 Many data warehouses also incorporate data from non-
OLTP systems such as text files, legacy systems, and
spreadsheets; such data also requires extraction,
transformation, and loading
 When defining ETL for a data warehouse, it is important
to think of ETL as a process, not a physical
implementation
ETL Overview
 ETL is often a complex combination of process and
technology that consumes a significant portion of the data
warehouse development efforts and requires the skills of
business analysts, database designers, and application
developers
 It is not a one time event as new data is added to the
Data Warehouse periodically – monthly, daily, hourly
 Because ETL is an integral, ongoing, and recurring part of
a data warehouse
 Automated
 Well documented
 Easily changeable
ETL Staging Database
 ETL operations should be performed on a
relational database server separate from the
source databases and the data warehouse
database
 Creates a logical and physical separation
between the source systems and the data
warehouse
 Minimizes the impact of the intense periodic ETL
activity on source and data warehouse databases
Extraction
Extraction

 The integration of all of the disparate systems across the

enterprise is the real challenge to getting the data
warehouse to a state where it is usable
 Data is extracted from heterogeneous data sources
 Each data source has its distinct set of characteristics
that need to be managed and integrated into the ETL
system in order to effectively extract data.
Extraction
 ETL process needs to effectively integrate systems that have
different:
 DBMS
 Operating Systems
 Hardware
 Communication protocols

 Need to have a logical data map before the physical data can
be transformed
 The logical data map describes the relationship between the
extreme starting points and the extreme ending points of your
ETL system usually presented in a table or spreadsheet
Target Source Transformation
Table Name Column Name Data Type Table Name Column Name Data Type

 The content of the logical data mapping document has been proven to be the critical
element required to efficiently plan ETL processes

 The table type gives us our queue for the ordinal position of our data load processes
—first dimensions, then facts.
 The primary purpose of this document is to provide the ETL developer with a clear-cut
blueprint of exactly what is expected from the ETL process. This table must depict,
without question, the course of action involved in the transformation process

 The transformation can contain anything from the absolute solution to nothing at all.
Most often, the transformation can be expressed in SQL. The SQL may or may not be
the complete statement
 The analysis of the source system is
usually broken into two major phases:
 The data discovery phase
 The anomaly detection phase
Extraction - Data Discovery Phase
 Data Discovery Phase
key criterion for the success of the data
warehouse is the cleanliness and
cohesiveness of the data within it
 Once you understand what the target
needs to look like, you need to identify and
examine the data sources
Data Discovery Phase
 It is up to the ETL team to drill down further into the data
requirements to determine each and every source system, table,
and attribute required to load the data warehouse
 Collecting and Documenting Source Systems
 Keeping track of source systems
 Determining the System of Record - Point of originating of data
 Definition of the system-of-record is important because in most
enterprises data is stored redundantly across many different systems.
 Enterprises do this to make nonintegrated systems share data. It is very
common that the same piece of data is copied, moved, manipulated,
transformed, altered, cleansed, or made corrupt throughout the
enterprise, resulting in varying versions of the same data
Data Content Analysis - Extraction
 Understanding the content of the data is crucial for determining the best
approach for retrieval
- NULL values. An unhandled NULL value can destroy any ETL process.
NULL values pose the biggest risk when they are in foreign key columns.
Joining two or more tables based on a column that contains NULL values
will cause data loss! Remember, in a relational database NULL is not equal
to NULL. That is why those joins fail. Check for NULL values in every
foreign key in the source database. When NULL values are present, you
must outer join the tables
- Dates in nondate fields. Dates are very peculiar elements because they
are the only logical elements that can come in various formats, literally
containing different values and having the exact same meaning. Fortunately,
most database systems support most of the various formats for display
purposes but store them in a single standard format
 During the initial load, capturing changes to data content
in the source data is unimportant because you are most
likely extracting the entire data source or a potion of it
from a predetermined point in time.

 Later the ability to capture data changes in the source

system instantly becomes priority

 The ETL team is responsible for capturing data-content

changes during the incremental load.
Determining Changed Data

 Audit Columns - Used by DB and updated by triggers

 Audit columns are appended to the end of each table to

store the date and time a record was added or modified

 You must analyze and test each of the columns to

ensure that it is a reliable source to indicate changed
data. If you find any NULL values, you must to find an
alternative approach for detecting change – example
using outer joins
Determining Changed Data
Process of Elimination
 Process of elimination preserves exactly one copy of
each previous extraction in the staging area for future
use.
 During the next run, the process takes the entire source
table(s) into the staging area and makes a comparison
against the retained data from the last process.
 Only differences (deltas) are sent to the data warehouse.
 Not the most efficient technique, but most reliable for
capturing changed data
 Determining Changed Data
Initial and Incremental Loads
 Create two tables: previous load and current load.
 The initial process bulk loads into the current load table. Since
change detection is irrelevant during the initial load, the data
continues on to be transformed and loaded into the ultimate target
fact table.
 When the process is complete, it drops the previous load table,
renames the current load table to previous load, and creates an
empty current load table. Since none of these tasks involve
database logging, they are very fast!
 The next time the load process is run, the current load table is
populated.
 Select the current load table MINUS the previous load table.
Transform and load the result set into the data warehouse.
Transformation
Transformation
 Main step where the ETL adds value
 Actually changes data and provides
guidance whether data can be used for its
intended purposes
 Performed in staging area
Transformation
Data Quality paradigm
 Correct
 Unambiguous
 Consistent
 Complete
 Data quality checks are run at 2 places - after
extraction and after cleaning and confirming
additional check are run at this point
Transformation - Cleaning Data
 Anomaly Detection
 Data sampling – count(*) of the rows for a department
column
 Column Property Enforcement
 Null Values in reqd columns
 Numeric values that fall outside of expected high and
lows
 Cols whose lengths are exceptionally short/long
 Cols with certain values outside of discrete valid value
sets
 Adherence to a reqd pattern/ member of a set of
pattern
Transformation - Confirming
 Structure Enforcement
 Tableshave proper primary and foreign keys
 Obey referential integrity

 Data and Rule value enforcement

 Simple business rules
 Logical data checks
 Stop

Yes

Cleaning
Staged Data And Fatal Errors No Loading
Confirming
Loading

Loading Dimensions
Loading Facts
Loading Dimensions
 Physically built to have the minimal sets of components
 The primary key is a single field containing meaningless
unique integer – Surrogate Keys
 The DW owns these keys and never allows any other
entity to assign them
 De-normalized flat tables – all attributes in a dimension
must take on a single value in the presence of a
dimension primary key.
 Should possess one or more other fields that compose
the natural key of the dimension
 The data loading module consists of all the steps
required to administer slowly changing dimensions
(SCD) and write the dimension to disk as a physical
table in the proper dimensional format with correct
primary keys, correct natural keys, and final descriptive
attributes.
 Creating and assigning the surrogate keys occur in this
module.
 The table is definitely staged, since it is the object to be
loaded into the presentation system of the data
warehouse.
Loading dimensions
 When DW receives notification that an
existing row in dimension has changed it
gives out 3 types of responses
Type 1
Type 2
Type 3
Type 1 Dimension
Type 2 Dimension
Type 3 Dimensions
Loading facts
 Facts
Fact tables hold the measurements of an
enterprise. The relationship between fact
tables and measurements is extremely
simple. If a measurement exists, it can be
modeled as a fact table row. If a fact table
row exists, it is a measurement
Key Building Process - Facts
 When building a fact table, the final ETL step is
converting the natural keys in the new input records into
the correct, contemporary surrogate keys
 ETL maintains a special surrogate key lookup table for
each dimension. This table is updated whenever a new
dimension entity is created and whenever a Type 2
change occurs on an existing dimension entity
 All of the required lookup tables should be pinned in
memory so that they can be randomly accessed as each
incoming fact record presents its natural keys. This is
one of the reasons for making the lookup tables separate
from the original data warehouse dimension tables.
Key Building Process
Loading Fact Tables
 Managing Indexes
 Performance Killers at load time
 Drop all indexes in pre-load time
 Segregate Updates from inserts
 Load updates
 Rebuild indexes
 Managing Partitions
 Partitions allow a table (and its indexes) to be physically divided
into minitables for administrative purposes and to improve query
performance
 The most common partitioning strategy on fact tables is to
partition the table by the date key. Because the date dimension
is preloaded and static, you know exactly what the surrogate
keys are
 Need to partition the fact table on the key that joins to the date
dimension for the optimizer to recognize the constraint.
 The ETL team must be advised of any table partitions that need
to be maintained.
Outwitting the Rollback Log
 The rollback log, also known as the redo log, is
invaluable in transaction (OLTP) systems. But in a data
warehouse environment where all transactions are
managed by the ETL process, the rollback log is a
superfluous feature that must be dealt with to achieve
optimal load performance. Reasons why the data
warehouse does not need rollback logging are:
 All data is entered by a managed process—the ETL system.
 Data is loaded in bulk.
 Data can easily be reloaded if a load process fails.
 Each database management system has different logging
features and manages its rollback log differently
 Questions