In 1996 Building ETL Processes is ChildsplayI started building ETL processes in the SAS System for a customer. This Customer needed a metadata driven approach for their Data Warehouse solution.

We build a nice collection of datasets / tables which contained the metadata about the source, the target and the transformations. This was my very first encounter with metadata drive ETL processes. There was no tool at that time like Informatica PowerCenter, Microsoft SSAS and SAS Data Integrator. All was built in pure macro code which accessed the metadata and created code on the fly.

Now 12 years later, I am again involved in building a metadata drive ETL factory, which can be configured and driven by non-technical people. We now-a-days have nice tools that can help these people in their job of building and configuring ETL processes. The only problem is that the out-of-the-box solutions which are provide never are suffient for the person needs.

For me this behaviour of the people and market has led to a first attempt to write an article about how child toys can be used to visualise the needs for ETL processes. You might call me the LEGO / DUPLO man, because multiple customers already heard my story about these childrens toys and how this affects their ETL processes they are building.

I hope I will be able to show the article on this BLOG soon (I will be starting an ARTICLE WRITING COURSE this month), until that time enjoy the YOUTUBE video below. This is an other visualisation of what can be done with LEGO !!!

Dutch JUMP Style

An other Dutch Jump Style

Last but not least, a link…
http://ldd.lego.com/

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