Data Integration Challenges and Techniques
If data is the new oil, data integration is the refinery.
Businesses depend on data from a wide range of inputs, including databases, apps, spreadsheets, cloud services, APIs, and more. The format, location, and quality of all this data varies, so it needs to be “refined” (cleaned and transformed) before an organization can use it effectively.
Data integration pulls from all available data sources, properly formatting raw data and removing duplicated information to make it useful input for analysis and decision-making.
While that may seem pretty straightforward, successful data integration presents several challenges that require specific knowledge and techniques. This article provides an overview of typical data integration challenges and how to overcome them.
Data Integration Challenges
Organizations commonly face four types of complications when dealing with their data.
Data Diversity
Data from different sources often comes in varying formats, structures, and even semantics, leading to compatibility and interpretation issues.
Businesses collect data from many applications—customer activity trackers, purchase histories, billing software, lead generation tools, CRM apps, customer service databases, and more.
Each data source is formatted and maintained by different teams, each with their own methods for data input and formatting. A simple (yet common) example is the phone number format. One team might use (888) 800-0016, while another uses +1 (888) 800-0016 or 8888000016 or even 888 800 0016.
Data Volume and Velocity
Data’s ever-growing volume and velocity (speed of arrival) can overwhelm traditional integration methods, impacting processing performance and cost.
Too much data can be a problem. Trying to collect every bit of data often leaves businesses with useless information, obscuring the valuable data they need. If the data management system isn’t up to the task, the company will struggle to extract valuable insights from the daily torrent of data flowing in from multiple channels.
Security and Compliance
Integrating sensitive data requires robust security measures and adherence to data privacy regulations. Businesses must simultaneously safeguard sensitive information and adhere to ever-evolving data privacy regulations.
Data platform integration increases the attack surface, potentially exposing sensitive information to unauthorized access. Criminals can exploit vulnerabilities in the integration process to steal or modify data.
Criminal activity aside, businesses also need to prevent accidental data loss. Data lost during transfer or processing can negatively impact the company’s finances and reputation.
A complex web of regulations like GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, and industry-specific standards govern data privacy and security practices. Organizations must demonstrate the flow of data throughout the integration process to prove that they are following regulations and can facilitate incident investigations.
Technical and Operational Complexity
It takes extraordinary time and effort to implement and manage a multitude of integrations between a data warehouse and the source and destination systems. When businesses attempt to do it with in-house resources, it takes employee focus away from their regular tasks.
Setting up and maintaining an integrated data environment involves complex technologies and specialized skills. Businesses often lack the in-house knowledge to solve their data integration challenges.
Companies in such situations may need a data engineering service to build the platform and data engineers, data analysts, and data scientists to manage it.
Techniques for Effective Data Integration
These professionals have the training and experience necessary for establishing and maintaining a robust data integration process. Their skillset encompasses these core techniques and technologies.
- ETL/ELT Processes: Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) or Extract, Load, Transform (ELT) methodologies provide frameworks for data movement and transformation between sources and target systems.
- Data Storage: Businesses can store massive amounts of data in several ways, including databases, data warehouses, data lakes, data lakehouses, data marts, and more. Learn more about these systems in our article, Which Enterprise Data Management System Should You Invest In?
- Data Virtualization: This technique provides a virtual view of integrated data without physically moving it, reducing storage requirements and improving access speed.
- Cloud-based Data Integration Platforms (iPaaS): These platforms offer pre-built connectors and functionalities, simplifying the integration process and reducing development overhead.
Establishing a secure data integration process is also critical. Organizations must safeguard sensitive information to avoid financial loss and adhere to ever-evolving data privacy regulations. As a result, the data engineers in charge of building the system need to be well-versed in data security protocols and techniques, including:
- Data Encryption: Encrypting data at rest and in transit safeguards sensitive information, even in case of a breach. Knowledge of data encryption techniques helps businesses stay compliant with the data security regulations discussed above.
- Identity and Access Management (IAM): Implementing multi-factor authentication and least-privilege access controls (i.e., limiting users’ access rights to only what is strictly required to do their jobs) minimizes unauthorized access risks.
- Data Classification and Masking: Classifying data based on sensitivity and masking sensitive data fields reduces the risk of exposure.
- Proactive Vulnerability Identification: This is the process of finding and patching security gaps before they get exploited.
Data Engineering Service and Support
Partnering with data engineering service providers can be a valuable solution for businesses lacking the internal expertise or resources to handle data integration in-house. These services can include:
- Data Strategy and Architecture Consulting: Defining a data integration strategy aligned with your business goals and choosing the appropriate technology stack.
- Data Pipeline Development and Deployment: Building and deploying data pipelines to automate data movement and transformation.
- Data Quality Management: Ensuring data accuracy, consistency, and completeness throughout the integration process.
- Ongoing Maintenance and Support: Providing ongoing monitoring, troubleshooting, and optimization of the data integration infrastructure.
Data engineering service providers supply the data integration expertise and skills for companies that need high-quality data platform integration but don’t have the time or budget to hire in-house talent.
Data Fuels Growth
Effective data integration is crucial for unlocking the full potential of an organization’s data assets. It unifies fragmented data into a cohesive whole to give businesses a comprehensive view of their operations, customer behavior, and market trends.
With a unified view, companies can analyze data from various angles, leading to informed and data-driven decisions. They can optimize marketing campaigns, personalize customer experiences, make strategic business investments, and identify areas for improvement.
Integration eliminates data silos, allowing seamless data sharing across departments to streamline workflows, minimize manual data manipulation, reduce human error, and boost overall efficiency and productivity.
With effective data integration, businesses gain better customer insights, leading to targeted marketing campaigns and personalized product offerings. These initiatives foster improved customer satisfaction and loyalty, ultimately increasing revenue and profitability.
Organizations that don’t leverage integrated data risk losing their competitive edge. Data integration gives them the power to make faster and more informed decisions, respond swiftly to market changes, and deliver superior customer experiences.
By understanding the challenges and leveraging the proper techniques, companies can turn the “new oil” into high-octane fuel for business growth.
