Vertica claims to offer the "most advanced unified analytical warehouse" in the world, providing actionable data insights you can't find anywhere else. 

The truth is, like any data warehouse, Vertica is only as good as the data you put into it

Moving data to Vertica can be a headache for organizations without a data engineering team. Data might live in various locations — transactional databases, relational databases, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, you name it. And all that data might exist in obscure file formats that Vertica doesn't recognize. 

That's where Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) provides a solution.

In this guide, learn why you should use ETL and discover the best ETL tools for Vertica.

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Read more: What Is the Vertica Analytics Platform?

Benefits of ETL for Vertica

ETL is a data engineering technique that extracts data from its source, transforms it to the correct format, and loads it to a data warehouse like Vertica for analytical purposes

You can execute ETL in two ways:

  1. Do it yourself manually by building complex data pipelines. You'll need to code and the process can take weeks or even months,
  2. You can use an ETL tool that does the hard work for you. ETL platforms require no code, so you can spend more time analyzing data for business intelligence rather than processing it.

It doesn't matter where you currently store your data. You might keep data in Salesforce, a relational database, or an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system. All that matters is the destination.

ETL tools take data from disparate sources, transform it into the proper format for analytics and then load it to Vertica. All that happens with limited human intervention. 

What Are the Three Best ETL Tools for Vertica?

1. Integrate.io

Integrate.io is a cloud-based data pipeline platform that requires no code. It moves data from a source to Vertica via the ETL process. (However, you can also transfer smaller data loads to Vertica via extract, load, transfer, or ELT.) Integrate.io's Vertica connector makes this all possible. It eliminates almost all of the manual work that's typically associated with data engineering. That means smaller teams with limited or no coding knowledge can move data to Vertica and produce insights about customer service, marketing, sales, and other business operations. 

It's not just Vertica. Integrate.io offers no-code native connectors for other data-warehouses such as Redshift, Snowflake, Oracle, and Google BigQuery. Plus, its Salesforce-to-Salesforce connector moves Salesforce data to Vertica and then back again —something you won't find on many ETL platforms. 

Other Integrate.io benefits include a REST API connector, reliable customer service, and compliance with data governance frameworks like GDPR and HIPAA. Plus, you only pay for the number of connectors you use and not the data you consume.

Read more: What Is Vertica and How Can You Use It?

2. Fivetran

Fivetran is an Integrate.io alternative that moves data to Vertica, but it's not as easy as you might think. That's because Fivetran only has ELT capabilities, which means it extracts data, loads it to a data warehouse, and then transforms the data. While ELT can prove effective for smaller data volumes, companies with larger loads might benefit from a traditional ETL transfer. 

There's another problem. Fivetran can't connect to Vertica (nor data-warehouses such as Teradata and Netezza) as a source. That's because these warehouses have no change capture mechanism. So you can't move data from Vertica to another destination, which might limit some users.

That said, Fivetran offers features like data compliance, world-class customer service, and event data flow for unstructured data. Fivetran charges users for the amount of data they consume. 

Read more: Fivetran vs. Integrate.io

3. Talend Open Studio for Data Integration

Talend Open Studio for Data Integration is one of the best ETL tools for Vertica because it's open source and doesn't cost anything to use. This platform migrates data to Vertica via the Java API JDBC. While it automates much of the pipeline-building process, you might still need some Java knowledge to execute data loads. 

Because it's open-source, Talend Open Studio is popular among data engineers and there's a sizeable online community that can help you navigate this platform. However, there are still limitations and companies with large volumes of data might need to upgrade to Talend's paid-for Data Management platform for deeper data analytics. 

Read more: Talend vs. Integrate.io

How Integrate.io Helps

While all the tools above can move data to Vertica, Integrate.io simplifies the process. With its native Vertica connector, you can migrate data from various sources to Vertica's data warehouse with no code and create streamlined workflows that remove the complexities of data engineering. Plus, you get simple pricing, excellent customer service, and compliance with all main data governance frameworks.

Are you looking for the best ETL tools for Vertica? Integrate.io moves data to Vertica's data warehouse so you can generate insights about your business without coding or data engineering experience. Book a 7-day demo