Definition

ETL Pipeline

Extract, Transform, Load - a data engineering pattern describing the three-step process of (1) extracting data from source systems, (2) transforming it into a consistent, clean format, and (3) loading it into a destination system for analysis or use. ETL is the foundational workflow of enterprise data infrastructure and has been central to data engineering since the 1970s. Modern AI ETL pipelines extend the traditional pattern by using AI models in the transformation step to process unstructured inputs - documents, images, audio - that traditional ETL could not handle. Mehul Shah's background includes building AWS Glue, Amazon's flagship ETL service, and OpenSearch, a distributed search and analytics engine built on Elasticsearch.

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