In this chapter, we will look into the data ingestion aspects of the data life cycle. Data ingestion is a very broad term; however, we will concentrate on some of the most important aspects of it. Data is generally considered to be ingested when it is ready for usage in enterprise systems. In reality, a significant amount of effort is required to perform data ingestion effectively and efficiently.
Data ingestion typically involves the following key tasks, which are also the topics that will be covered in this chapter:
- Data extraction
- Data staging
- Data cleaning
- Data normalization
- Data enrichment
- Data organization and storage
At times, there are more tasks involved as part of data ingestion. There are also situations where some of these tasks might not be necessary and two or more could be combined into a single task.