What this book covers

Chapter 1, Introduction to ETL Development, explains what Extract, Transform, and Load (ETL) processes are, and what role Data Services plays in ETL development. It includes the steps to configure the database environment used in recipes of the book.

Chapter 2, Configuring the Data Services Environment, explains how to install and configure all Data Services components and applications. It introduces the Data Services development GUI—the Designer tool—with the simple example of "Hello World" ETL code.

Chapter 3, Data Services Basics – Data Types, Scripting Language, and Functions, introduces the reader to Data Services internal scripting language. It explains various categories of functions that are available in Data Services, and gives the reader an example of how scripting language can be used to create custom functions.

Chapter 4, Dataflow – Extract, Transform, and Load, introduces the most important processing unit in Data Service, dataflow object, and the most useful types of transformations that can be performed inside a dataflow. It gives the reader examples of extracting data from source systems and loading data into target data structures.

Chapter 5, Workflow – Controlling Execution Order, introduces another Data Services object, workflow, which is used to group other workflows, dataflows, and script objects into execution units. It explains the conditional and loop structures available in Data Services.

Chapter 6, Job – Building the ETL Architecture, brings the reader to the job object level and reviews the steps used in the development process to make a successful and robust ETL solution. It covers the monitoring and debugging functionality available in Data Services and embedded audit features.

Chapter 7, Validating and Cleansing Data, introduces the concepts of validating methods, which can be applied to the data passing through the ETL processes in order to cleanse and conform it according to the defined Data Quality standards.

Chapter 8, Optimizing ETL Performance, is one of the first advanced chapters, which starts explaining complex ETL development techniques. This particular chapter helps the user understand how the existing processes can be optimized further in Data Services in order to make sure that they run quickly and efficiently, consuming as less computer resources as possible with the least amount of execution time.

Chapter 9, Advanced Design Techniques, guides the reader through advanced data transformation techniques. It introduces concepts of Change Data Capture methods that are available in Data Services, pivoting transformations, and automatic recovery concepts.

Chapter 10, Developing Real-time Jobs, introduces the concept of nested structures and the transforms that work with nested structures. It covers the mains aspects of how they can be created and used in Data Services real-time jobs. It also introduces new a Data Services component—Access Server.

Chapter 11, Working with SAP Applications, is dedicated to the topic of reading and loading data from SAP systems with the example of the SAP ERP system. It presents the real-life use case of loading data into the SAP ERP system module.

Chapter 12, Introduction to Information Steward, covers another SAP product, Information Steward, which accompanies Data Services and provides a comprehensive view of the organization's data, and helps validate and cleanse it by applying Data Quality methods.