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Data Science & Analytics vocabulary · Data Pipelines and Warehousing

ETL

Meaning in data science & analytics, with examples

abbreviationCommon term

In data science & analytics, ETL means: Short for extract, transform, load: the process of taking data out of source systems, cleaning and reshaping it, and loading it into a warehouse.

In Turkish: ETL, çıkarma, dönüştürme, yükleme

How it is used

Said letter by letter. Used as a noun ('the ETL') and before other nouns ('ETL job', 'ETL pipeline'). Many modern teams use ELT instead: they load raw data first and transform it inside the warehouse.

Example sentences

  1. The nightly ETL job loads yesterday's transactions into the warehouse.

  2. The numbers look off because someone changed the ETL logic last week.

Common collocations

  • ETL job
  • ETL process
  • ETL pipeline
  • ETL tool
  • data pipelineA series of automated steps that moves data from its sources, transforms it and delivers it to a destination such as a warehouse, dashboard or model.
  • data warehouseA central database designed for analysis that stores cleaned, structured data from many systems, such as sales, marketing and finance, often over many years.
  • batch processingProcessing data in large groups at scheduled times, for example once every night, rather than handling each record the moment it arrives.
  • raw dataData in the form in which it was first collected or exported, before anyone has cleaned, combined or summarised it.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Data Pipelines and Warehousing

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