http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extract,_transform,_load
Real-life ETL cycle
The typical real-life ETL cycle consists of the following execution steps:
- Cycle initiation
- Build reference data
- Extract (from sources)
- Validate
- Transform (clean, apply business rules, check for data integrity, create aggregates or disaggregates)
- Stage (load into staging tables, if used)
- Audit reports (for example, on compliance with business rules. Also, in case of failure, helps to diagnose/repair)
- Publish (to target tables)
- Archive
- Clean up