Is the DBT Cloud More Efficient: Here’s What You Should Know
Many companies are trying to find the most efficient ways to make the best use of their time, resources, and money. One of the solutions that has been floating around the data management arena is the Data Build Tool (DBT), which is a command line tool used by data analysts to transform data in warehouses more effectively. DBT is part of the Extract, Transform, Load (ETL) process, but more specifically the Transform portion, that allows jobs to be scheduled for data transformation.
The DBT Cloud is an open-source core product that is designed to help data teams limit distractions, gain momentum, and facilitates in leveraging time and effort. The DBT Cloud has several benefits, but many companies want to know if it truly is more efficient and if it is a worthwhile investment. We’ll explore this question below so you can make the best-informed decision before figuring out if DBT Cloud is the right for you and your business.
Easy Orchestration
Saving time is key for any business looking to make the most of their day, resources, and energy output especially when it comes to their data analyst team. Orchestration is your data analyst team’s ability to run things on a schedule and automate processes that usually eat up a lot of time. The DBT Cloud is a great tool suited for small teams looking to get the most out of their data in as little time as possible. This feature also notifies the team of any issues or errors that might arise before merging data stacks.
Live Query Results
One of the standout features of the DBT Cloud is the Integrated Development Environment (IDE). In the past, companies have had to depend on a text editor to build individual templated Structured Query Language (SQL) queries and then return the data to their warehouse data archive. The IDE streamlines this entire process of live query results and reduces the level of frustration for your data analyst team. You can write code quickly, view multiple query results from one browser, validate your work when you save a query, compile your queries, and preview recent versions of queries with a key command.
Slim CI
Continuous Integration (CI) is a software development practice of automating changes to code from multiple developers into the main branch several times a day. CI has been somewhat limiting for data analysts in the past, where they had to build the entire project with one model. That’s why DBT Cloud rolled out the Slim CI, which allows teams to build and test the modified parts of their DBT project. This is incredibly beneficial mainly because it helps companies save time and money by lessening the overall workload on data analysts and data engineers. Your team can implement retention of run artifacts for immediate deferral automatically with an easy configuration set-up, and you can also schedule and trigger tasks when pull requests come up.
Document Viewer
Another great feature of the DBT cloud is the built-in document viewer, which gives your team a big picture view of your DBT project. Your entire team can have access to the same documents, which makes the collaborative process much more seamless and time conducive. Your team is able to view the dependencies, size, and stage of any DBT project that’s currently being worked on. The viewer accounts are free and you’re able to pick and choose who has access, which takes care of any security concerns and/or logistic issues.
Metadata APIs
Another beneficial aspect of the DBT cloud is the metadata Application Programming Interface (API), which empowers data analyst teams to show the freshness of DBT data sources to stakeholders. This deepens trust with stakeholders and expands data awareness across the board. Teams gain the ability to look more closely into data trends, the positive or negative impact of their data, and monitor data in real-time. Metadata APIs give teams the ability to make better-informed decisions about their data choices and build historical understanding from this data in the form of visual charts and infographics.
Conclusion
DBT Cloud has become more popular as of late, especially for data-driven companies, but this leads companies to question if this is the right fit for them and their teams. Every platform isn’t right for every company, but DBT Cloud is best suited for smaller teams looking to save time, resources, and energy. It comes with several features including easy orchestration, live query results, and Slim CI. Streamlined accessibility comes into play with the document viewer and Metadata APIs help expand data awareness. If you have a large robust team, DBT Cloud may not be the best fit for you and you might already be able to employ these features with your data team. However, DBT Cloud is a highly beneficial option for smaller teams looking for ways to best leverage their time, resources, and energy.