Unifying a Information Stack and Leveraging Self-Serve Analytics with Atlan
The Lively Metadata Pioneers collection options Atlan prospects who’ve accomplished a radical analysis of the Lively Metadata Administration market. Paying ahead what you’ve discovered to the subsequent information chief is the true spirit of the Atlan neighborhood! In order that they’re right here to share their hard-earned perspective on an evolving market, what makes up their trendy information stack, progressive use circumstances for metadata, and extra.
On this installment of the collection, we meet Daniel Ferguson, Information and Analytics Director at PHMG, an audio branding firm that helps over 36,000 purchasers throughout 56 nations sound their greatest. Daniel shares how PHMG remodeled their information stack from fragmented to unified, and the way Atlan has been a vital piece in by monitoring lineage, managing experiences, and easing staff onboarding.
This interview has been edited for brevity and readability.
May you inform us a bit about your self, your background, and what drew you to Information & Analytics?
I was a DJ after which labored as a sound engineer constructing recording studios. Throughout my time as a sound engineer, I discovered myself within the technical and analytical facet of issues. After beginning a household, I needed a change. After promoting my recording studio, my mom, who managed a council workplace, provided me a job and I began out within the name middle unit, dealing with calls. It rapidly grew to become obvious that I might do extra than simply calls, so I moved to the database staff.
I began finding out for a level in Economics and Mathematical Science at The Open College whereas working on the council. Utilizing the talents learnt on my diploma I began to construct logistic regression fashions to focus on contacts within the name middle I had beforehand labored in. I proposed that, with only one particular person, I might obtain the identical outcomes as your complete staff. My work generated 300% extra outcomes than the staff’s mixed efforts by optimizing information assortment, addressing lacking info, and cherry selecting the very best contacts. After that I used to be hooked on the facility of information & analytics.
I then constructed an organization offering information companies to different Native Authorities. Close to the tip of my diploma, a consultancy in Scotland, Aquila Insights, provided me a place. They labored with purchasers like Sony, Workplace Depot, and RBS, which gave me early publicity to the information career. From there, I superior within the subject and ultimately joined PHMG. My journey into information was considerably unintended, but it surely introduced me to the place I’m in the present day.
Would you thoughts describing PHMG?
We concentrate on audio branding. Consider logos like Netflix or Disney Plus, by sound alone, these manufacturers are immediately recognizable as trade leaders in leisure and streaming even when their visible logos are usually not in sight.
We additionally transcend conventional audio branding by growing customized music tailor-made to every group. We’ll take Atlan for instance: What’s Atlan about? What do you signify? What’s the kind of rhythm that it desires to deliver?
This connection between music and id is what attracted me to the corporate. We’ve got been extremely profitable, working in 56 nations with 36,000 purchasers.
May you describe your information stack, and the way it got here collectively?
After I received right here, we had been utilizing SQL servers with Excel spreadsheets. There have been restricted to no interactive experiences, and each information request needed to be raised to the information staff.
There was a must modernize the data flowing into the corporate and implement the best know-how to realize this effectively and reliably. I centered on discovering know-how options that might streamline operations and scale back the necessity for extra engineers.
I used to be actually cautious with know-how choice, avoiding options for the sake of it, and never constructing from scratch. Whereas Azure Material affords a complete answer, for instance, it’s nonetheless new and that comes with extra dangers, however is one thing I’m conserving my eye on. It’s essential to decide on the very best instruments for the job and guarantee they work properly collectively. Investing in a seamless course of with these instruments lets you begin sturdy and display worth rapidly, with room to evolve as you scale.
In my board proposal, I highlighted two important instruments: Atlan and ThoughtSpot. I defined that whereas we might handle with out them, they’d make a major distinction. I needed governance to change into embedded in our processes, and that as a substitute of assigning information stewards with out clear course, we supplied actionable experiences and comprehensible information. With correctly organized information, governance turns into simple, and Atlan streamlines this course of.
I chosen Snowflake for its robustness and cheap pricing, and Fivetran for its dependable pipeline efficiency, which successfully handles our information integration wants.
I applied PowerBI for government experiences, and ThoughtSpot for our self-serve information wants. I’m a giant fan of ThoughtSpot, as a result of it permits customers to regulate their very own experiences, lowering the necessity for fixed modifications from the information staff.
For orchestration, I take advantage of Airflow to handle pipelines, and DBT with GitLab for our code repository and CI/CD processes.
Why was Atlan a great match? Did something stand out throughout your analysis course of?
In my earlier group, I attempted utilizing open-source with DataHub, however its upkeep and growth required vital funding. Atlan stood out as a result of it’s plug-and-play, mechanically constructing out miners that reveal beforehand unknown insights. It identifies and explains scripts we weren’t conscious of, saving time and lowering technical debt from having to manually evaluation intensive code.
Atlan lets us observe and monitor what we’ve constructed, together with information lineage and belongings. It’s invaluable for reviewing experiences with no need to ask for code particulars—simply navigate by Atlan to see the report’s historical past. New staff members may also perceive report development by Atlan.
For me, Atlan was a key piece of the puzzle.
I researched Collibra, Alation, and Atlan extensively, and Atlan was the clear selection. It felt designed for medium-sized enterprises and required minimal engineering effort. Given our scenario, it was essential to combine it from the beginning, somewhat than as an afterthought. This allowed us to be taught and develop Atlan alongside our present methods, somewhat than attempting to pressure it into our pre-built setup.
I at all times make it a degree to fulfill with management groups at occasions to gauge their perspective and dedication, and I don’t know of another gamers which are doing it in addition to Atlan. I used to be genuinely impressed by Atlan’s management staff — not solely their ardour for the product but additionally their dedication to addressing my challenges and enhancing our scenario.
How are you planning to harness Atlan to boost your information stack? What thrilling use circumstances and objectives do you bear in mind?
We’ve invested in an information vault mannequin for our information warehouse, which feeds into an operational information retailer, what I name the information mart. All our experiences and metrics are constructed from this information mart. In Atlan, we outline learn how to assemble every thing, so as soon as a metric is outlined, we will write the SQL to extract it from the mart.
We then create curated tables for shopper companies and gross sales organizations, enabling them to self-serve by way of ThoughtSpot. For detailed insights into the development and rationale of those metrics, we retailer that info in Atlan, which turns into our catalog.
As new folks come on board, I make sure that there’s no want for a handover. By default, we doc our processes as we go and construct methods that go away clear breadcrumbs for others to observe. Atlan performs a vital position on this. We direct new staff members to Atlan to assist them perceive how every thing is constructed and what it’s constructed from. Atlan doesn’t simply spill out the code, it highlights the important thing objects, their utilization, and their significance.
One other main mission includes making a complete glossary inside Atlan, serving as our single supply of reality. This surroundings permits enterprise customers to entry all company metrics and consider experiences from Salesforce, PowerBI, and ThoughtSpot, all linked round key KPIs.
We’re additionally at present refining our information lineage and mannequin descriptions. As we create new information fashions, we replace descriptions incrementally somewhat than in bulk. This ongoing effort helps make sure that our information fashions are well-documented and simply comprehensible.
Do you’ve gotten any recommendation to share along with your friends who’re beginning out in managing and organizing their information belongings successfully?
Companies at all times speak about being information pushed, however they don’t discuss in regards to the belongings that truly drive the information. We would like info to movement in our group, however info can’t movement if it’s not organized persistently. And for me, instruments like Atlan are making it considerably simpler for us to arrange and talk what information issues.
Don’t get me fallacious, Atlan isn’t a silver bullet. It gained’t repair poor group inside your information warehouse. Nonetheless, it does present a centralized place to outline and assess your processes, serving to you determine which of them are efficient and which of them want enchancment.
Atlan helped us decide the place to start out by figuring out our most important tables and specializing in what was vital. For example, we discovered one desk important for every thing we constructed, permitting us to prioritize it. We then assessed our experiences and found that some we thought had been vital had been related solely to particular experiences, not the broader context.
As we get delicate information, we will additionally instantly flag it. If we get audited, we will merely pull up Atlan and say, “Hey, that is what now we have. That is how we handle our information. That is what our information belongings are.” So, for these dedicated to being data-driven, they should take care of their information belongings and perceive what their information belongings are.
Picture by Adi Goldstein on Unsplash