What are the benefits and challenges of using ETL tools for data cleansing in relational databases?
Data cleansing is the process of identifying and correcting errors, inconsistencies, and duplicates in a data set, usually before loading it into a relational database. Data cleansing can improve the quality, accuracy, and reliability of data, as well as reduce storage costs and optimize performance. However, data cleansing can also be time-consuming, complex, and error-prone, especially when dealing with large and diverse data sources. That's why many data professionals use ETL tools to automate and streamline data cleansing tasks. ETL stands for extract, transform, and load, and refers to the process of extracting data from different sources, transforming it according to predefined rules and logic, and loading it into a target database. ETL tools can offer various benefits and challenges for data cleansing in relational databases, which we will explore in this article.