Basic guidance on selecting a data warehouse
In the world of ETL, or Extract Transform Load, vendors essentially form two dominative segments: those who target small to medium-sized businesses (SMBs), and those who cater to larger enterprises.
There is of course some overlap between the two, and vendors in each group sometimes take strides to cross over and reach customers outside their zone, but this paradigm generally still holds true. The distinguishing factors between these two classes are principally their pricing strategies, the integrations they offer, as well as the varying degrees of setup and maintenance.
It is vital to realize that these groups are not interchangeable. Differentiating traits such as pricing structures often reflect the distinctive needs and capacities of SMBs versus enterprise-level companies. Furthermore, the integrations available may align more fittingly with the technologies used within SMBs or larger corporations respectively.
Data warehouse and databases like Oracle, Amazon Redshift, Google BigQuery, Microsoft SQL Server, SAP BW, IBM Db2 Warehouse, and Snowflake all require substantial technical expertise to operate. Even the act of setting up a Service Account is a daunting task for less technical customers in the SMB space. Learning querying takes months not minutes.
Spreadsheet apps like Microsoft Excel Online, Google Sheets or Smartsheet take less than 5 minutes to set up and require zero technical skills -a much more attractive choice for entrepreneurs and small businesses.
This bifurcation among vendors underscores the different market segments these ETL vendors aim their solutions at. With a vast array of options, both SMBs and enterprise-level organizations can find an ETL vendor that aligns perfectly with their unique needs and resources.
