Howdy!
Ever considered or wanted to know how Data would move around the organization?
Data Lineage is a key driver that ensures on connecting the right dots with the business and its sources.
According to Technopedia:
"Definition – What does Data Lineage mean?
Data lineage is generally defined as a kind of data life cycle that includes the data's origins and where it moves over time. This term can also describe what happens to data as it goes through diverse processes. Data lineage can help with efforts to analyze how information is used and to track key bits of information that serve a particular purpose."
ER/Studio does a fantastic job by not only help you create a Data Lineage diagram from Scratch, but also with the Enterprise Team Edition, data lineage bridges enable you to bring in third party ETL Processes from:
- Informatica
- SQL Server Integration Services
- IBM DataStage
- Oracle Data Integrator and many more!
The Data Lineage feature of ER/Studio Data Architect enables you to document the movement of data from point A to point B (and any intermediate steps in between). This movement is sometimes referred to as Extraction, Transformation and Load (ETL). Points A and B can be anything from flat files, high-end databases such as Oracle and DB2, XML, Access databases, and Excel worksheets. This is sometimes referred to as source and target mapping. A model produced in ER/Studio can represent any point along the way. Data Architects need the ability to specify the source or target of data down to the column-level. Along with the metadata that defines the source and target mapping are rules for how the data is manipulated along the way.
Shown below is an example of a typical Transformation:
Learn more about data lineage in this short video.
In an upcoming blog post we shall explore how to create a simple Data Flow.
Learn more about ER/Studio Data Architect.