Eckerson Group’s Deep Dive Report Explains DataOps Methodology for Building Modern Data Solutions

Haley Teeples January 6th, 2021

Eckerson Group, a leading Data Analytics Consultant and Research firm, is internationally known for its expert guidance for organizations that wish to gain value from their data at each stage of their data journey. Zaloni was fortunate to be one of four data solutions included in Eckerson Group’s latest December 2020 Deep Dive report, DataOps Deep Dive: Different Approaches to the DataOps Platform. The report provides an overview of DataOps and its importance while incorporating how Zaloni’s end-to-end DataOps platform, Arena, features data management tools and capabilities that maximize data efficiency and extensibility.

The Four Pillars of DataOps

DataOps, as described in the report, must include four key pillars: 

1. Continuous Integration and Continuous Development (CI/CD): All data and code in a pipeline must have a single source of truth that remains untouched throughout development so that existing data pipelines are still usable. CI/CD allows producers to continue to innovate and enables team-based development in that respective environment. 
2. Orchestration: Facilitating a DataOps strategy in a data ecosystem requires orchestrators to connect and automate data workflows from ingestion to consumption. Orchestrating AI/ML functionalities relieve developers’ time burden and provide much-needed control at each step of the data supply chain. 
3. Testing: With a DataOps approach, Data Engineers are encouraged to incorporate batch testing in pipelines to check data quality and functionality in the development phases. These initial tests deliver high-quality data quicker and lessen troubleshooting once in production.
4. Monitoring: The ability to monitor current data infrastructure proves critical for smooth pipeline operations, helping engineers understand where bottlenecks and breakages occur, permitting optimization of the entire pipeline. Monitoring requires specialized tools to see across the whole data ecosystem and component technologies, but businesses can significantly save on overhead costs once in place. 

As Eckerson group says best in the report, these pillars serve as a “functions layer on top of the tools that make up data pipelines and help data teams deliver products faster, better, and cheaper.” 

How Zaloni Facilitates DataOps Success

In the Deep Dive report, Eckerson outlines four products that each approach DataOps practices and principles differently through the four pillars described above. Zaloni’s end-to-end DataOps platform, Arena, provides unified data management and governance at each step of the data supply chain from source to consumption.

Arena proves itself in comparison to other DataOps approaches and products with its notable platform offerings:

• An extensive selection of tools for data management, ingestion, orchestration, and more at any workflow stage
• Self-service provisioning and access to data sets for consumers
• Ability to stay compliant with privacy and additional regulations
• Natively supporting features like masking, lineage, tokenization, and granular permissions

The Deep Dive report from Eckerson Group goes into greater detail about Zaloni’s ideal customers, Arena’s readily accessible data management tools, and its top-rated governance to meet any regulatory needs. We don’t want to give too much DataOps goodness away that is inside this report, so make sure to click here to download and access the Zaloni featured Eckerson report for yourself. After your latest read, don’t forget to visit our website to schedule a demo to discover your customized solution with our data experts.

about the author

Haley Teeples

Haley Teeples is a recent graduate from North Carolina State University and has been working at Zaloni for over a year. She initially joined Team Z as a Marketing Intern and then worked as a Technical Documentation Intern on the Engineering team. With a clear passion for content creation and learning in the data management space, today, Haley serves as an associate on Zaloni's Product Marketing team.