The journey of data

Data engineering is the vehicle that makes the journey of data possible, secure, durable, and timely. A data engineer is the driver of this vehicle who safely maneuvers the vehicle around various roadblocks along the way without compromising the safety of its passengers. Waiting at the end of the road are data analysts, data scientists, and business intelligence (BI) engineers who are eager to receive this data and start narrating the story of data. You can see this reflected in the following screenshot:

Figure 1.1 – Data's journey to effective data analysis

Traditionally, the journey of data revolved around the typical ETL process. Unfortunately, the traditional ETL process is simply not enough in the modern era anymore. Due to the immense human dependency on data, there is a greater need than ever to streamline the journey of data by using cutting-edge architectures, frameworks, and tools.

You may also be wondering why the journey of data is even required. Gone are the days where datasets were limited, computing power was scarce, and the scope of data analytics was very limited. We now live in a fast-paced world where decision-making needs to be done at lightning speeds using data that is changing by the second. Let's look at how the evolution of data analytics has impacted data engineering.