Integration Terminology (Glossary)

Common terminology associated with data integration and Integration Engineer concepts.

Apache Camel

A “mediation router”: a message-oriented middleware framework implementing the enterprise integration patterns. It makes use of these patterns along with supporting all common transport protocols and having a vast set of useful adapters included.

Apache Kafka

A distributed publish-subscribe messaging system that receives data from disparate source systems and makes the data available to target systems in real-time. It facilitates the asynchronous data exchange between processes, applications, and servers. 

API

API stands for Application Programming Interface. It's part of our software that allows and enables other programmers to connect to it.

Business Intelligence

The purpose of Business Intelligence is to make educated business decisions based on data. Its components are collecting, integrating, analyzing, and presenting business information.

Camel Component

Will act as an endpoint factory. To put it simply, components offer an interface to different technologies using the same approach and syntax. Camel already supports a lot of components in its DSLs for almost every possible technology, but it also gives the ability for writing custom components

Cluster

A unified group of servers, distributed and managed under a single IP address, which serves as a single entity to ensure higher availability, proper load balancing, and system scalability.

Data Blending

A data management technique that provides a fast, easy, and flexible method to extract value from multiple data sources and to find patterns without the deployment of a traditional data warehouse architecture.

Data Cleansing

The transformation of data from its native or raw state to a pre-defined or standardized format or structure using customized software.

Data Lake

A storage repository that can hold large quantities of raw data in its native form, including structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data. In this format, the data does not need to be structured until it's needed.

Data Federation

Process where data is collected from distinct databases without ever copying or transforming the original data.

Data Governance

The management of the availability, usability, integrity, and security of the data stored within an enterprise.

Data Integration

The combination of technical and business processes that are used to combine data from different sources into meaningful insights.

Data Lineage

Referred to as the data life-cycle, which includes the origins of the data and where it moves over time, describing what happens to data as it goes through diverse processes.

Data Mapping

Data mapping is the process of creating data element mappings between two different data models. It is commonly used as a first step for a wide array of data integration tasks, including data transformation between a data source and a destination.

Data Mart

A data repository that contains data arranged in specific patterns (star schema, snowflake schema, etc) to support informational applications.

Data Migration

The process of moving data between two or more storage systems, data formats, warehouses or servers.

Data Mining

Extracting previously unknown information from databases and using that data for important business decisions, in many cases helping to create new insights.

Data Modeling

A method used to define and analyze the data requirements needed to support an entity’s business processes, defining the relationship between data elements and structures.

Data Ownership

Answers the question: ‘who owns the data?’. It is also the philosophical and legal concept of an entity owning the right to control access to a particular set or group of data.

Data Silos

A separate database or set of data files that are not part of an organization's enterprise-wide data administration.

Data Steward

Another term used in conjunction with Data Ownership implies who owns and is responsible for the data. It is also the philosophical and legal concept of an entity owning the right to control access to a particular set or group of data.

Data Quality

Refers to the overall level of “quality” or perceived value of the data. If a particular datastore is seen as holding highly relevant data for a project, that data is seen as a quality to the users when their is a high degree of trust in the data values.

Data Warehouse

It is a central repository in which to store information. It usually contains historical data derived from transaction data, but it can include data from other sources, such as social media.

EIP

An EIP, short for enterprise integration pattern, is a software pattern that is used for designing data flows between different pieces of enterprise software.

Endpoint

This is a channel through which the system can receive or send a message. It can refer to a web service URI, queue URI, file, email address, etc

ETL

ETL stands for Extract, Transform, Load. In computing, it refers to a process used in databases, and especially data warehousing, that blends data from multiple sources.

Exchange

This is the container of a message and it is created when a message is received by a consumer during the routing process. The exchange allows different types of interaction between systems – it can define a one-way message or a request-response message

Instance

Refers to a deployed version of the IntegrationManager server that contains and manages all of the executable data integration routes that manage your data migrations to a partition.

Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS)

A suite of cloud services enabling the execution and governance of Data Integration flows connecting to on-premise and cloud-based processes.

Message

Contains the data which is being transferred to a route. Each message has a unique identifier and it's constructed out of a body, headers, and attachments

Node

A node is any physical device within a network of other tools that’s able to send, receive, or forward information.

Partition

This is a server that is running the Pricefx SaaS application and is accessible via a URL path and contains all of the active modules and pricing functionality.

Processor

This is a simple Java interface that is used to add custom integration logic to a route. It contains a single process method that will be used to perform custom business logic on a message received by a consumer.

Route

A route is where the integration flow is defined. For example, to integrate two different systems then a Camel route can be coded to specify how these systems are integrated.

SQL

SQL is an abbreviation for Structured Query Language. SQL is a standardized query language used for managing relational databases and performing various operations on the data in them

Tableau

Tableau is business intelligence (BI) and analytics software. The platform was created to make it easier for you to understand your data and to give you the ability to make data-based decisions.