Data Engineering Podcast


This show goes behind the scenes for the tools, techniques, and difficulties associated with the discipline of data engineering. Databases, workflows, automation, and data manipulation are just some of the topics that you will find here.

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15 October 2019

Keeping Your Data Warehouse In Order With DataForm - E102

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Summary

Managing a data warehouse can be challenging, especially when trying to maintain a common set of patterns. Dataform is a platform that helps you apply engineering principles to your data transformations and table definitions, including unit testing SQL scripts, defining repeatable pipelines, and adding metadata to your warehouse to improve your team’s communication. In this episode CTO and co-founder of Dataform Lewis Hemens joins the show to explain his motivation for creating the platform and company, how it works under the covers, and how you can start using it today to get your data warehouse under control.

Announcements

  • Hello and welcome to the Data Engineering Podcast, the show about modern data management
  • When you’re ready to build your next pipeline, or want to test out the projects you hear about on the show, you’ll need somewhere to deploy it, so check out our friends at Linode. With 200Gbit private networking, scalable shared block storage, and a 40Gbit public network, you’ve got everything you need to run a fast, reliable, and bullet-proof data platform. If you need global distribution, they’ve got that covered too with world-wide datacenters including new ones in Toronto and Mumbai. And for your machine learning workloads, they just announced dedicated CPU instances. Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/linode today to get a $20 credit and launch a new server in under a minute. And don’t forget to thank them for their continued support of this show!
  • This week’s episode is also sponsored by Datacoral. They provide an AWS-native, serverless, data infrastructure that installs in your VPC. Datacoral helps data engineers build and manage the flow of data pipelines without having to manage any infrastructure. Datacoral’s customers report that their data engineers are able to spend 80% of their work time invested in data transformations, rather than pipeline maintenance. Raghu Murthy, founder and CEO of Datacoral built data infrastructures at Yahoo! and Facebook, scaling from mere terabytes to petabytes of analytic data. He started Datacoral with the goal to make SQL the universal data programming language. Visit Datacoral.com today to find out more.
  • Are you working on data, analytics, or AI using platforms such as Presto, Spark, or Tensorflow? Check out the Data Orchestration Summit on November 7 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View. This one day conference is focused on the key data engineering challenges and solutions around building analytics and AI platforms. Attendees will hear from companies including Walmart, Netflix, Google, and DBS Bank on how they leveraged technologies such as Alluxio, Presto, Spark, Tensorflow, and you will also hear from creators of open source projects including Alluxio, Presto, Airflow, Iceberg, and more! Use discount code PODCAST for 25% off of your ticket, and the first five people to register get free tickets! Register now as early bird tickets are ending this week! Attendees will takeaway learnings, swag, a free voucher to visit the museum, and a chance to win the latest ipad Pro!
  • You listen to this show to learn and stay up to date with what’s happening in databases, streaming platforms, big data, and everything else you need to know about modern data management. For even more opportunities to meet, listen, and learn from your peers you don’t want to miss out on this year’s conference season. We have partnered with organizations such as O’Reilly Media, Dataversity, Corinium Global Intelligence, Alluxio, and Data Council. Upcoming events include the combined events of the Data Architecture Summit and Graphorum, the Data Orchestration Summit, and Data Council in NYC. Go to dataengineeringpodcast.com/conferences to learn more about these and other events, and take advantage of our partner discounts to save money when you register today.
  • Your host is Tobias Macey and today I’m interviewing Lewis Hemens about DataForm, a platform that helps analysts manage all data processes in your cloud data warehouse

Interview

  • Introduction

  • How did you get involved in the area of data management?

  • Can you start by explaining what DataForm is and the origin story for the platform and company?

    • What are the main benefits of using a tool like DataForm and who are the primary users?
  • Can you talk through the workflow for someone using DataForm and highlight the main features that it provides?

  • What are some of the challenges and mistakes that are common among engineers and analysts with regard to versioning and evolving schemas and the accompanying data?

  • How does CI/CD and change management manifest in the context of data warehouse management?

  • How is the Dataform SDK itself implemented and how has it evolved since you first began working on it?

    • Can you differentiate the capabilities between the open source CLI and the hosted web platform, and when you might need to use one over the other?
  • What was your selection process for an embedded runtime and how did you decide on javascript?

    • Can you talk through some of the use cases that having an embedded runtime enables?
    • What are the limitations of SQL when working in a collaborative environment?
  • Which database engines do you support and how do you reduce the maintenance burden for supporting different dialects and capabilities?

  • What is involved in adding support for a new backend?

  • When is DataForm the wrong choice?

  • What do you have planned for the future of DataForm?

Contact Info

Parting Question

  • From your perspective, what is the biggest gap in the tooling or technology for data management today?

Closing Announcements

  • Thank you for listening! Don’t forget to check out our other show, Podcast.__init__ to learn about the Python language, its community, and the innovative ways it is being used.
  • Visit the site to subscribe to the show, sign up for the mailing list, and read the show notes.
  • If you’ve learned something or tried out a project from the show then tell us about it! Email hosts@dataengineeringpodcast.com) with your story.
  • To help other people find the show please leave a review on iTunes and tell your friends and co-workers
  • Join the community in the new Zulip chat workspace at dataengineeringpodcast.com/chat

Links

The intro and outro music is from The Hug by The Freak Fandango Orchestra / CC BY-SA

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