Don’t Integrate Data – Connect It!

Data integration today covers an enormous spectrum of jobs, from heavyweight extract, transform. load (ETL) pipelines that populate massive cloud data warehouses to agile point‑to‑point connections. Most solutions share a common assumption: Data must be copied and stored somewhere organized before it can be useful, like a data warehouse or data lake.

Yet for many analytics, automation, and reporting scenarios, that assumption often adds unnecessary cost, complexity, and delay to critical projects. What if you could simply connect to live data—no new database, no replication jobs, no surprise bills—while still giving business teams the governed access they expect?

In this post, I’ll unpack what we mean by “data connection,” where it differs from traditional integration, and how to decide whether connecting, moving, or a blend of both will best serve your data strategy. We’ll help you choose the best solution for your needs that solves your data challenges, while providing a cost- and time-effective solution.

What is a data connection?

A data connection provides virtualized, real‑time access to source systems without needing to replicate a second copy of the data. Think of it as creating a secure lens into the original dataset. CData Connect Cloud makes it easy for users to connect and build virtual datasets so that spreadsheets, business intelligence (BI) platforms, and low‑code automation tools can query the data directly, skipping the intermediary storage.

By comparison, ETL/ELT pipelines physically replicate data into a warehouse or data lake. That model shines when you need petabyte‑scale historical analysis, downstream redundancy, or freedom to heavily transform data offline. But it also demands architectural overhead—storage, pipelines, orchestration, governance layers—before the first insight is delivered.

Why connect instead of copy?

• Real‑time insights – Queries always hit the source of truth, so dashboards refresh with live values instead of yesterday’s batch job.
• Lower total cost of ownership (TCO) and faster projects – Skip provisioning a warehouse and maintaining sync jobs; instead, have live data flowing in under an hour.

Beyond speed and cost, connecting data avoids data governance issues. Because nothing is stored in Connect Cloud, sensitive records stay behind existing firewalls and compliance boundaries. Your security posture improves rather than replicates, and you can trust Connect Cloud with industry-leading SOC2, GDPR, and more certifications.

When connecting data is the best fit

For many line‑of‑business and analyst‑driven projects, a live connection offers everything required:

• Ad‑hoc reporting and self‑service BI where freshness matters more than complex transformations.
• Workflows in automation platforms like Power Automate or Make that only need current records.
• Organizations that want to eliminate redundant data copies for governance or ESG

When you still might want to move data

This doesn’t mean Connect Cloud can solve all your data integration challenges. For example, there are many cases where replicating data in ETL, ELT, or change‑data‑capture pipelines make sense:

1. Large‑scale historical analysis and machine learning (ML) training – Warehouses excel at crunching years of data with complex joins.
2. Regulatory backup and disaster recovery – Some industries mandate secondary copies in geographically distinct locations.
3. Heavy transformations – If you routinely cleanse, reshape, or aggregate before consumption, staging in a warehouse simplifies processing.

If those scenarios sound familiar, or you need efficient large-scale replication for other reasons, try CData Sync—our ETL platform for moving data into any major database or lake while preserving lineage and schema.

Choose the right tool for the job

The most effective modern data architectures blend live data connections for immediate access with data pipelines for more complex jobs. Connect Cloud and Sync can work side by side: Analysts query the latest numbers in Salesforce via Connect Cloud while nightly Sync jobs archive snapshots to Snowflake for longitudinal trends.

The key is to match the integration pattern to the challenge you're tackling. Need a real‑time view of open opportunities in a slide deck? Connect Cloud. Forecasting next quarter’s churn from five years of usage logs? Sync.

Here are other benefits of Connect Cloud that make it efficient and easy to start connecting data:

• Fast, browser‑based setup – Authenticate sources, pick destinations, and start querying—no agents, installation, or VPN required.
• Simple, predictable pricing – Subscribe to the connectors you need; never go over budget by row count or compute minutes.
• Broad ecosystem coverage – 270+ software-as-a-service (SaaS), database, and file connectors plus native integrations with Excel, Power BI, Tableau, Looker, and more.
• Always‑fresh data – Behind the scenes, Connect Cloud optimizes queries and respects source rate limits, so updates appear as soon as the source changes.

Pro Tip: Because no data is stored, your single source of truth remains the operational application. Governance teams love that.

Arm your teams with the tools to get the data they want

Data connection is not a silver bullet—but it is the fastest path to insight for countless everyday analytics, reporting, and automation workflows. By virtualizing access instead of relocating data, CData Connect Cloud helps organizations trim costs, simplify architecture, and empower users to work with live information in the tools they already know. When the time comes to store and replicate massive datasets for any reason, consider bringing CData Sync into the mix.

Ready to cut out the middleman? Start a free trial of CData Connect Cloud and start building live data connections in minutes.