August 2018 Summaries

Fivetran is a secure data pipeline that can replicate and sync applications, databases, event logs, and file stores into Microsoft Azure Synapse. The second-generation Azure Synapse boasts superior query performance and increased data warehouse benchmarks. Fivetran simplifies the process for non-engineers to use SQL or BI tools to query Azure Synapse and gain insights into business operations. It supports over 90 sources, including popular platforms like Marketo, Mixpanel, Oracle on Amazon RDS, Azure Blob Storage, DoubleClick, LinkedIn Ads, Netsuite SuiteAnalytics, and Salesforce. Fivetran also adheres to industry-leading security standards for connecting, replicating, and loading data from various sources into cloud warehouses like Microsoft Azure Synapse, Snowflake, Google BigQuery, and Amazon Redshift.

The article discusses how to use SQL queries with Zendesk data to assess help desk performance by employing metrics that offer quantitative insight into the efficiency of support teams. It focuses on response time as a key metric and provides methods and queries for determining the number of business hours it takes for a given ticket to be solved. The article also presents solutions in SQL for different warehouses, such as Google BigQuery, Amazon Redshift, Periscope, Panopoly, MySQL, Snowflake, and Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse. It highlights some limitations and future improvements needed for the queries presented.

Columnar databases are more suitable for data warehouses than OLTP databases due to their optimization for BI-style queries that involve aggregating large numbers of rows into a few rows, and selecting only a few columns. This is in contrast to OLTP databases which optimize for selecting many columns but only a single row. Columnar databases can be significantly faster (up to 1000x) than OLTP databases for BI-style queries and are designed to scale across multiple nodes, providing additional performance benefits. While it's possible in theory to operate two databases under the hood to support both styles of queries, in practice, it is better to keep them separate due to different availability requirements. Major cloud providers offer columnar data warehouses such as Amazon Redshift, Azure SQL DWH, and Google BigQuery, which are supported by Fivetran.

Fivetran has introduced Partner Connect, a new workflow for Snowflake users that integrates Fivetran data connectors into the Snowflake user interface. This feature simplifies data loading and analysis by allowing customers to set up pre-configured connections with just a few clicks. The partnership aims to make data centralization more accessible and efficient, reducing the need for manual setup of data warehouses and pipelines. Fivetran offers over 100 connectors across various sources and warehouses, with comprehensive schemas designed to ensure data integrity and immediate readiness for analytics. The company also provides end-to-end encryption, adherence to security standards, and predictable pricing based on the number of connectors needed.