Discover the Modern Data Stack Essentials

Have you ever thought about implementing a modern data stack in your business? If not, you may want to after you learn what it is!

Read on to discover what you need to know about the modern data stack. 

Modern Data Stack: What Is It?

In the modern age, businesses rely heavily on data to operate. This is probably not news to you. However if you run or own a company and are unfamiliar with modern data stacks, your world is about to be changed. 

 

A modern data stack is essentially a stack of tools that work together to collect, store, transform, and analyze your data. This is where the stack part comes in. It is easiest to think of it as a stack. So, each layer, from bottom to top, plays a critical role in the process that takes your data from its source to the mind of the decision-makers in your business. 

Source of Data

There are plenty of sources that your data come from throughout your company. Whether it is from varying applications, software, or other types of databases. This is naturally the bottom layer of your data stack. The problem with the source level is that if you don’t have anywhere to put all of that data, you will end up with a bunch of different data silos. This can make it impossible to run analytics. 

Data Ingestion 

The ingestion layer is the beginning of the fix to our data silo problem. During this part of the process, the data is extracted from its source and moved on to storage. There are several different tools that can do this in an automated way so that you can have the most relevant data without manually acquiring it. 

Data Storage

This stack is pretty self-explanatory. You need to have one place to store all of this data. Modern data stacks use cloud-based storage systems, often one like Snowflake, to do this. 

Data Transformation

It is not enough to just store the data as is. You have to transform it for this operation to be as efficient as possible. This allows your data to be filtered for duplicates and mistakes while at the same time ensuring that every file is uniform to your desired format. This dramatically increases efficiency for the latter analytics phase. 

Data Operations

Operations is another relatively straight forward stack. Once your data has been stored and transformed, there are multitudes of different tasks and operations that each department will need the data for. This phase allows you to automate that data to be sent to each department as needed, making overall operations much more efficient. 

Data Analytics 

You probably already know plenty about how data analytics work as it is becoming arguably one of the most important aspects of modern business. Typically including machine learning or artificial intelligence, this phase allows you to analyze all of your centralized data. So you can analyze it all and make the most appropriate decisions for your business. 

Centralization 

With all of these different departments and software streaming in and out of one large data stack, centralization could not be more important. This type of stack needs to be contained within one larger data platform that seamlessly integrates with your cross-company software. Among the many benefits of having your data centralized like this are analytics, organization, and accessibility. 

Organization 

Organization of data is key to good business. If you are unorganized, you will find yourself and your team wasting time sifting through the clutter every day. 

Analytics

Centralizing your data stack to one platform will fuel analytics more efficiently than you may have thought possible. You could automate the whole thing with just a few clicks of the button. So that your people can spend less time gathering information and more time making crucial decisions.

Accessibility 

This one comes along with analytics. No matter where your people are, they can easily access any of your data by simply going to the one data platform and looking at it. It truly is a luxury that has turned into a necessity. 

Implementation

So, the next natural step is implementation. It sounds rather impossible to integrate varying software into one fluid data platform like this. And it could be if you want your software engineers to build it for you. Building this sort of system in-house can be time-consuming and expensive. Luckily, you don’t have to do that. 

Outsource 

Outsourcing an all-in-one modern data platform is quick, easy, and essential to having a modern data stack integrated into your business. Did I mention it’s quick? You can have this data workflow available to you in a matter of minutes. So you can get started making data-driven decisions today!

Now You Know  

Now you know the ins and outs of modern data stacks and the essential elements to implementing one. This will allow your company to be data-driven, efficient, and stay on top of your competition!