We have just released Talend Open Profiler - the first open source data profiler.

Put simply, data profiling is the process of examining the data available in existing data sources and collecting statistics and information about this data. Data profiling - while an interesting discipline in its own right - is especially interesting when executed as part of a data quality strategy. In other words: know your data, before you attempt to fix it.

Talend has always considered data quality to be an integrant part of data integration. From day one, we have started to build some data quality and data cleansing components: deduplication, enrichment, fuzzy logic matching… Data profiling clearly takes us to the next step and allows us to introduce a data quality focused product suite. A data quality suite that can - and should - be used wherever data integration is used. But also, that can be used standalone when dealing with data quality issues - outside of the realm of data integration.

Like human viruses, poor quality data travels faster when applications are integrated. In the 19th century, epidemics would stay local. In the 21st century, the SARS infection spread worldwide in days… As information systems are no longer standalone, and all applications and databases communicate and exchange, being certain of the level of quality of your data is key. Before you send erroneous or incomplete data to corrupt other systems…

So - couple things. First, join me in congratulating the Talend data quality development team, led by Sebastiao, for a terrific product. Second, download Talend Open Profiler, test it, use it, post in the forums, report bugs or features request, and tell us what you think!

Yves

Over the past few months, we have started to see a dramatic increase on the amount of web traffic and chatter related to Talend, on non-sanctioned Talend sites. By non-sanctioned, I certainly do not imply anything negative - just that these sites are not controlled by Talend and are mostly the work of community members getting together to discuss and exchange around their favorite data integration technology.

There are a few communities I would like to especially recognize:

• Developpez.com, the French-language “Club des développeurs”, hosts a very active technical forum on Talend. It complements well TalendForge.org’s forum and caters to the French-speaking community.
• Viadeo, the leading social network, now boasts a Talend Open Community. With hubs in 5 languages (English, French, German, Spanish, Italian), the Talend Open Community has over 500 members from all over the world. More networking-oriented than technical-oriented, the community is a great complement to Talend’s technical community tools.
• Xing also hosts a German-speaking Talend Group. A bit younger than the other ones, it is however catching up quickly and has already seen some interesting exchanges.

All these communities are a great proof of Talend’s growing footprint and market presence. You are cordially invited to one of them, several of them, or even to initiate a new one in a specific region, market segment, vertical… just let us know about them so that we can recognize it, and contribute (if you want).

Yves