Top 15 Data Integration Tools Offering Adding Value to Data

The Data Integration Market size was valued at USD 9.26 Billion in 2020 and is projected to reach USD 24.3 Billion by 2028, growing at a CAGR of 12.8% from 2021 to 2028. World over, today’s businesses deal with bulks of data residing in disparate data sources. There is so much value lying in this data but until it is analyzed, integrated, and reported, there is no gain. Leaving this data unattended may lead to inefficiency, poor business returns, and profitability.

Data integration is one such modern-day approach to extracting and integrating data to enhance profitability and productivity. And to implement data integration with efficacy, there are several data integration tools that have been popular globally.

Selecting the apt data integration tool is a tough task since there are many options available. This article discusses the top data integration tools, to look for. Prior to that, let us have a quick glance at what is data integration and how these data integration tools benefit businesses.

What is Data Integration?

As per Wikipedia, data integration involves combining data residing in different sources and providing users with a unified view of them.

Data integration is the process of merging data from different sources to a single destination for analysis, business intelligence, reporting, and gaining meaningful insight. The data that is integrated through the best means is reliable, secure, current, and systematic. The data integration process starts with the data ingestion procedure and goes on with data cleansing, ETL mapping, and transformation.

Key Benefits of Data Integration

• Data quality and integrity
• The faster connection between data stores
• Enhanced collaboration
• Smooth transfer between data systems
• Increased RoI with real-time insight into business

What Are Data Integration Tools?

Data integration tools are the software tools that perform the data integration procedure including mapping, transformation, and cleaning of data. These tools synchronize systems to enhance the business workflow during operations.

The major benefits of these data integration tools are

• Automation of routine activities
• Simplification of complicated data integrations
• Enhancing data potential to its finest
• Making data easily usable and accessible
• Easy communication and collaboration
• Customization and migration of data

There are different types of data integration tools such as on-premises data integration tools, cloud-based data integration tools, open-source data integration tools, and proprietary data integration tools.

15 Popular Data Integration Tools for 2023

• Talend

Talend is a popular data integration tool that offers data management, application integration, data preparation, data quality, big data, and other features. Talend is an open-source tool, has large community support, and provides a wide range of services. Talend Open Studio offers on-premises as well as cloud-based services with the help of Spark, Hadoop, and NoSQL databases.

• Pentaho Data Integration

Pentaho Data Integration (PDI) is a known, open-source data integration tool that offers effective ETL competencies, data migration, database replication, and flexible canned transformation. It is fit for complicated transformation jobs. PDI has a smooth and simple learning curve and supports multiple use cases outside of ETL in a warehouse. It helps users in the creation of ETL jobs on a graphical interface barring the requirement of code.

• Informatica

Informatica is a leading name in the data integration circuit offering Informatica PowerCenter — for ETL jobs in enterprises and Informatica Cloud Data Integration — for Integration Platform as a Service. Both offer great services for enterprises and scale suitably as per data requirements. It offers data virtualization, data connection from multiple sources, master data management, data validation, and cloud application integration.

• Dell Boomi

Powered by Dell, Boomi is a cloud-based integration tool with a capable visual designer and pre-configured elements. It empowers businesses to manage data integration in a centralized repository. It offers support for several application integrations as a service. It has a leading name in the iPaaS (Integration Platform As A Service) sector. There are various data management and integration competencies offered by this tool.

• SnapLogic

SnapLogic is an easy-to-use data integration tool that provides fast integration capabilities to organizations. There are 500+ inbuilt connectors and an AI-driven assistant that perks up its utility amidst enterprises. As a robust and self-service integration tool, it integrates well with IoT devices and offers faster connections. It empowers users to view the ETL job details through different graphs and charts.

• Oracle Data Integrator

Oracle Data Integrator is a powerful tool offering data integration for SaaS and SOA-enabled data services. There is easy interoperability with Oracle Warehouse Builder. It unites well with other Oracle systems like Oracle Big Data Appliance, Oracle Fusion Middleware, etc. It is completely integrated with Oracle Cloud, Oracle Database, etc. It offers a graphical user interface for enhanced user experience.

• MuleSoft

MuleSoft is a popular data integration platform that assists organizations in connecting applications, data, and devices across different environments — be it on-premises or cloud-based. It is a part of the Salesforce family and has an integration technology ‘AnyPoint’ that helps developers in the integration of technology through API Designer, AnyPoint Studio, etc. There is complete mobile support for workflow management and task monitoring.

• Apache Nifi

Powered by Apache, Nifi is a software ETL tool that automates the data flow within software systems and offers powerful graphs of transformation, data routing, etc. There is real-time control over the data movement and hence it is easy to manage. As an ETL tool, it offers flow-based programming with a web user interface and drag-and-drop facility. It empowers data routing and transformation requirements through a single server or cluster.

• Stitch

As a Talend product, Stitch offers faster and more in-depth insights with complete automation of cloud data pipelines. Data can be consolidated from disparate data sources and SaaS apps into relevant destinations. You can quickly move data from the source to the destination (cloud data warehouse) in a few clicks, even if there is less IT expertise. Users can have analysis-driven information at their fingertips.

• AWS Glue

AWS Glue is a leading, serverless, event-driven data integration platform and computing service that executes code in response to events and performs automatic management of computing resources. There is a visual and code-based interface for making it easy to integrate data. AWS Glue Studio provides Notebook, Visual ETL, and a code editor interface for better data exploration and testing jobs.

• Qlik

Qlik, as a well-known data integration organization, offers Qlik Replicate and Qlik Sense that facilitate the creation of visualizations, dashboards, and applications. There is a simple drag-and-drop interface that helps in interactive data visualization. It supports multiple file types and data sources. There is easy integration with Google, Snowflake, AWS, Databricks, SAP, etc. It supports database connectors and FTP.

• Informatica PowerCenter

As a powerful GUI-based data integration tool, Informatica performs the ETL process for creating enterprise data warehouses. It fulfills major data migration requirements through its salient features such as faster prototyping, automatic data validation, modern data transformation, reusability, scalability, and many more. The Power Center acts as a prime repository under the RDBMS.

• Azure Data Factory

It is Azure’s cloud ETL service for enhanced data transformation and data integration that operates around all digital transformation activities. There is a code-free user interface for detailed authoring and monitoring. It transforms business initiatives and IT-enabled business intelligence. Users can prepare data, build ETL/ELT processes, and monitor pipelines with ease.

• SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS)

Microsoft SSIS is a popular ETL tool, ideal for creating enterprise-wide data integration and transformation solutions. It can resolve complicated business issues through copying/downloading files, data cleansing, loading warehouses, and SQL Server object and data management. It offers flexible data integration from different data sources with seamless integration with other Microsoft SQL products.

• Fivetran

Fivetran is a leading, automated, cloud-based ETL tool that aids in ingesting and transferring data from varied sources like applications, databases, data lakes, etc. to data storages and warehouses. It is an automated data movement technology that implements most part of the entire ELT/ETL process efficiently. Users can connect to multiple data sources for data consolidation through its powerful connectors.

On a Final Note

Data is king today! And hence data integration is almost inevitable. Choosing the right data integration tool depends upon different parameters like total cost of ownership, target audience, learning curve, scalability needs, user requirements, security and compliance, real-time data accessibility, and data transformations.

If you are looking at availing of data integration services or any type of technical help for your hordes of data, you are at the right place. We offer exemplary services for data analytics, data warehousing, data engineering, and much more. Contact us for any kind of IT requirement of yours and we will be happy to help

Note: This Post Was First Published On https://ridgeant.com/blogs/top-data-integration-tools/