Optimizing data sharing? Grand Nancy testifies
"I was looking for a simpler tool than a traditional ETL, which would enable me to concentrate on the meaning of the data, their formats, match data sets easily, and provide flexibility for evolution. In a way, it's a tool for managing data throughout its entire life cycle" Julien Glauzy, Data Administrator at the Information Systems and Telecommunications Department of the Greater Nancy Metropolis.
To meet the demands of its employees, the Metropole Grand Nancy is looking to optimize data sharing. The aim is to gain a global view, better understand the data, improve its quality, and unify the information systems from which it originates to improve efficiency and quality of service.
What were Grand Nancy's challenges?
What did Tale of Data contribute? What were the reasons for choosing Tale of Data?
Key points for the Greater Nancy Metropolis
Presentation of the Metropole of Greater Nancy
The challenges facing Greater Nancy
Why did Métropole Grand Nancy choose Tale of Data?
The solution immediately stood out for its powerful functionalities and flexibility, enabling data to be processed for decision-making purposes. "I saw that we could achieve a quick win and respond to some very old problems. The tool quickly provides an exhaustive approach to a set of data from a database or file.
Exploration and formatting are much faster than with Excel functions or an ETL. What's more, the way we approach the data means that we concentrate fully on the format, meaning and data sets, rather than on the technique, which saves time," explains Julien Glauzy.
The software's interface also makes it easy to re-read a data "flow", a bit like a book, so that you can easily find what you've done to the data (transformation, formatting, mixing, etc.). "Once again, I save time, and it's easier to share the process and results," comments Julien Glauzy. In Tale of Data, the repository logic exists - so it's possible to make join and combination strategies between numerous repositories, which you can't do with SQL. Working with a repository logic is called Data Mesh*. This enables us to move from a centralized data infrastructure (data warehouse, data lake) managed by a single team to a distributed data organization (supplier/consumer/repository logic), which is what Grand Nancy does.
What are the benefits?
One of the key benefits of the solution lies in the automation of linking and reconciliation processes. "Rather than having data in the IS and building a data warehouse that corresponds to a single use, we build repositories by theme. When a request comes in, we combine the repositories we need from ready, already formatted repositories. It's faster and extremely flexible," says Julien Glauzy. Over and above one-off requests, and thanks to data that can be taken from different repositories - always ensuring that they are fresh and RGPD-compliant - Julien Glauzy provides the IT Service Center with strategic steering indicators to improve the quality of services rendered.
Tale of Data achieves at least 95% connectivity between data from different repositories, which is impossible with databases. Thanks to the power of AI, the solution detects, for example, what is a name or not - recognition to within two letters or in full text - but also detects thousands of other data items such as addresses, telephone numbers, SIREN numbers, ..... Tale of Data lets you see what's in the fields, and alerts you to anything that's not properly formatted. "When you're working with millions of lines, it saves you an infinite amount of time," says Julien Glauzy.
To find out more about how Tale of Data applies the Data Mesh concept to transform data management and deliver strategic insights, visit our dedicated "Data Mesh" page or read our in-depth article on the subject "The Data Mesh: a new approach to data organization and exploitation".
* concept proposed by Zhamak Delghani in 2019
Data Mesh: a new approach to organizing and exploiting data
TotalEnergies customer testimonial
