Data for All: Adopt Low Code-No Code Data Pipelines to Expand your Effective Data Team
Introduction: The cloud changes everything
Cloud data warehouses can transform the way you run your business, revealing the drivers and detractors of profitable growth. But cloud data warehouses can also become expensive dumping grounds for unusable data
A useful and cost effective data infrastructure requires more than just a data warehouse filled with raw data, dependent upon brute-force data engineering to map and model data into useful business output.
Like C3PO, the original Star Wars protocol droid, LCNC interfaces allow anyone to do mission-critical data work, reducing time-to-value for business stakeholders and redirecting data and IT teams to focus on strategic insights and data activation, including AI-driven outcomes…
Few science fiction robots are more iconic than the astromech droid R2D2 and his protocol droid buddy, C3PO. In the Star Wars universe, protocol droids like “3PO” assist sentients with planning, problem solving, and translation – being fluent in “more than 6 million forms of Communication!”
To achieve this vision here on earth, we’re innovating in areas like humanoid robotics and generative AI. And while both of these fields hold huge promise to transform the way humans interact with data and technology, there’s a simpler revolution underway helping humans tackle protocol, and that’s the rise of low code/no code (LCNC) interfaces to cloud services, software applications and data.
IT and data teams everywhere are maxed out, being asked to do more with less everywhere at once. They’re often spending too much time on tactical buildout and maintenance instead of helping stakeholders drive business value.
Business users that have the core domain knowledge and context to define requirements and goals don’t have technical know-how or access to be self-sufficient – and instead rely heavily on engineering teams to get work done.
The promise of LCNC interfaces is to democratize (for all employees) and consumerize (for nonengineers) the work at hand. This has become especially important as data proliferates and data increasingly offers an “unfair advantage” to companies and brands that can wield it without overwhelming IT.
In data warehouses, the central component of the modern data stack, landing data in tables might solve the first 1% of the useful data problem. Data engineering, responsible for mapping and modeling, is the bottleneck for the other 99% of the work. Tools and services like DBT and Snowflake make things easier for engineers, but the work today is still primarily constrained by technical complexity and engineering capacity.
Is there a way to resolve both the greater cost and inability to flex to real-time usage by taking one more step forward in modern data architecture?
What if we could create as many mappings as necessary to meet business requirements without additional engineering tickets?
What if we could create useful transformations and logic that don’t require data engineering?
When we solve for these cases, Data and IT teams move from tactical pipeline and workflow plumbing, free to focus on strategic insights and activation of an organization’s Data.
So how do low code / no code (LCNC) interfaces benefit businesses building and maintaining complex data analytics systems? How does LCNC help make analytics projects faster, easier and cheaper to start, and on an ongoing basis?
Low code no code (LCNC) interfaces benefit businesses building and maintaining complex data analytics systems by reducing the technical skills required to build and maintain these systems. LCNC platforms provide drag-and-drop interfaces and pre-built templates that enable users to create complex data pipelines and analytics applications without having to write code from scratch. This makes analytics projects faster, easier, and cheaper to start, and on an ongoing basis.
With LCNC interfaces, business users can take a more active role in building and maintaining analytics systems, rather than relying on IT teams or external vendors to do the work. This enables business users to have more control over the analytics systems and to respond more quickly to changing business needs.
LCNC platforms also reduce the time and cost of building and maintaining data analytics systems. Because LCNC platforms provide pre-built templates and pre-configured components, users can build analytics applications and pipelines faster and with fewer errors. This reduces the time and cost of development, as well as the ongoing maintenance and support costs.
Additionally, LCNC platforms can provide access to a wider range of data sources and analytics tools. This enables businesses to use a variety of data sources to inform their analytics applications, and to integrate different analytics tools and services into their workflows.
Democratize Your Data Flows
C3PO has his character flaws, and low code / no code interfaces aren’t perfect either. While LCNC platforms can automate some aspects of performance tuning, it’s still important to for IT and cloud data teams to optimize query performance by using appropriate indexing, caching, and partitioning strategies. Humans need to validate data flows and models in the context of their unique business and use cases.
Acknowledging these limitations, LCNC interfaces can still provide businesses with a faster, easier, and more cost-effective way to build and maintain complex data analytics systems. By empowering business users with the tools they need to create and maintain analytics systems, businesses can become more agile and responsive to changing business needs, and can more easily capitalize on new opportunities and insights.
Like C3PO did for the Rebel Alliance, low code / no code interfaces can help businesses translate data into useful insights and outputs. Try putting LCNC tools to work for your team, and see what you can accomplish!
Future Proof your Data Stack with LCNC Pipelines
LCNC interfaces can provide your business with a faster, easier, and more cost-effective way to build and maintain complex data analytics systems. By empowering business users with the tools they need to create and maintain data flows and actionable outputs, your organization becomes more agile and responsive to changing business needs, and can more easily capitalize on new opportunities and insights.
Find out more about all nine characteristics of a Future-Proof Cloud Data infrastructure in our comprehensive exclusive ebook.
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