Using DataConnect to Acquire, Prepare and Deliver Data to Actian Data Platform

Actian recently announced the availability of the Actian Data Platform on the Azure platform, extending the capabilities already available on AWS. This announcement is exciting news for customers because it means greater flexibility and choice in selecting cloud operating environments as well as creating the opportunity for a multi-cloud deployment.

Actian DataConnect enhances the capabilities of Actian Data Platform with a scalable Integration Platform as a Service (IPaaS) offering to help you manage connections from all of your source systems into your Actian data warehouse. With DataConnect, you will have the tools to acquire, prepare and deliver data to the Actian Data Platform with ease.

Establish Connections to Any Source

UniversalConnect provides the capabilities to establish data connections for any source, including APIs, SaaS solutions, files, databases, mainframe systems, and on-premises applications. This is important because your IT environment is diverse, but the data insights you need to span the breadth of your enterprise. With UniversalConnect, you can connect your legacy systems, existing data stores, and even third-party platforms into the Actian Data Platform to make the full enterprise dataset available for analysis and reporting.

Flexible Integration Patterns

With DataConnect, you can execute integrations using any integration pattern, including scheduled batch processing, REST APIs, event listeners, and streaming data. Having multiple integration patterns available is because not all your data connections are the same. Real-time streaming data needs to be processed quickly to harvest maximum analytical value while some transactional data (such as that used for planning) only need to be updated periodically. The key is making sure you have the most current and correct data available for analysis at the time that it needs to be consumed. DataConnect gives you great flexibility to select the integration patterns that are best for your business.

Design Integration Workflows With DataConnect Studio

Managing data in your business is more than establishing a bunch of connections. DataConnect Studio gives you the capabilities to design workflows to orchestrate the flow of data throughout your IT environment. For example, you might want to:

1. Extract from a SaaS system like Salesforce or NetSuite.
2. Standardize and enrich the data using simple functions, joins, etc.
3. Transform into a simple format like CSV and optionally add columns to tag data or engineer additional data elements.
4. Deliver the file to a data lake (i.e., S3, ADL).
5. Dynamically generate SQL statements based on the file’s schema.
6. Execute SQL commands by pushing them down to the database server for optimal processing.
7. Create an external table reference to the delivered CSV file so that Actian Data Platform can query against it directly.
8. Define subsequent runs of the integration workflow to refresh the data set.

The release of Actian Data Platform on Azure opens up a host of new opportunities for you to modernize your data management capabilities and move your data warehouse to the cloud. DataConnect provides the tools to connect all your data sources into the new cloud data warehouse environment so you can get the most value out of this investment. The Actian Data Platform works best when paired with a scalable IPaaS solution like DataConnect that includes robust tools for establishing connections, acquiring data sets, preparing, and then delivering them into the Actian data warehouse. To learn more about the DataConnect solutions and how it supports your Actian deployment, visit www.actian.com/dataconnect.

About Actian Corporation

Actian is helping businesses build a bridge to a data-defined future. We’re doing this by delivering scalable cloud technologies while protecting customers’ investments in existing platforms. Our patented technology has enabled us to maintain a 10-20X performance edge against competitors large and small in the mission-critical data management market. The most data-intensive enterprises in financial services, retail, telecommunications, media, healthcare and manufacturing trust Actian to solve their toughest data challenges.