Benn Stancil
November 16, 2016
1
Building a flexible analytics stack
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Benn Stancil, Analyst
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Drive decisions
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It needs a
backstory
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13
Editors in an Organizations Each Month
Sales
month/month
Lost accounts
Year over year
125 8 $20,187,921.56
Gross revenueNew accounts
month/month
1.75% 0.5% 0.5%
Accounts by State
Search…Sales
Editors in an Organizations Each Month
Sales
Personal
SPACES
General
Home
Financial Reports
Sept. Board Meeting
Marketing
Retention Reports
Churn analysis
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Analytics
applications
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Business
application
Website
Central
warehouse
Third party
applications
Analytics
applications
Event
logging
Transformation
and aggregation
E(T?)L
Communication and
information platforms
Analytics
applications
E(T?)L
16
How this system gets built
(and what we learned building it)
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How this system gets built
(and what we learned building it)
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Business
application
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Business
application
• Web application
• Mobile app
• Inventory management system
• Point of sale system
• Sales records in Excel
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Business
application
Analytics
applications
• Plotly
• Mode
• (Others)
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1. You can start small
THINGS WE LEARNED
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Still a
cowboy
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Business
application
Analytics
applications
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Business
application
Website
Analytics
applications
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Business
application
Website
Analytics
applications
Analytics
applications
• Google Analytics
• Mixpanel
• Chartbeat
• Kissmetrics
• Amplitude
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27
28
29
Business
application
Website
Analytics
applications
Analytics
applications
30
Business
application
Website
Central
warehouse
Analytics
applications
Event
logging
Analytics
applications
31
Website
Central
warehouse
Event
logging
Analytics
applications
• PostgreSQL
• MySQL
• Oracle
• MS SQL Server
• Redshift
• BigQuery
• Hive
• Spark
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Website
Central
warehouse
Event
logging
Analytics
applications
• PostgreSQL
• MySQL
• Oracle
• MS SQL Server
• Redshift
• BigQuery
• Hive
• Spark
33
Website
Central
warehouse
Event
logging
Analytics
applications
• Google Analytics
• Amplitude
• Heap
• Segment
• Snowplow
• Custom built
34
Business
application
Website
Central
warehouse
Analytics
applications
Event
logging
Analytics
applications
35
Business
application
Website
Central
warehouse
Analytics
applications
Event
logging
E(T?)L
Analytics
applications
36
Business
application
Central
warehouse
E(T?)L
• Fivetran
• Segment
• ETLeap
• Stitch Data
• Data Virtuality
• Xplenty
• Alooma
• Blendo
• AWS Data Pipeline
• Custom built
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2. One step at a time
THINGS WE LEARNED
38
Business
application
Website
Central
warehouse
Analytics
applications
Event
logging
E(T?)L
Analytics
applications
39
Business
application
Website
Central
warehouse
Analytics
applications
Event
logging
E(T?)L
Analytics
applications
• Salesforce
• Zendesk
• Stripe
• Mailchimp
• Twilio
• JIRA
• Hubspot
• Marketo
• NetSuite
• Square
• Github
• Adwords
• FB Ads
. . . .
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Business
application
Website
Central
warehouse
Third party
applications
Analytics
applications
Event
logging
E(T?)L
Analytics
applications
E(T?)L
41
Business
application
Third party
applications
E(T?)L
E(T?)L
• Fivetran
• Segment
• ETLeap
• Stitch Data
• Data Virtuality
• Xplenty
• Alooma
• Blendo
• AWS Data Pipeline
• Custom built
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3. Evaluate data products

by their data
THINGS WE LEARNED
43
Business
application
Website
Central
warehouse
Third party
applications
Analytics
applications
Event
logging
E(T?)L
Analytics
applications
E(T?)L
44
Business
application
Website
Central
warehouse
Third party
applications
Analytics
applications
Event
logging
Transformation
and aggregation
E(T?)L
Analytics
applications
E(T?)L
45
Transformation
and aggregation
• Informatica
• Pentaho
• Alooma
• Keboola
• Airflow
• Custom built
• Analytics applications
46
Business
application
Website
Central
warehouse
Third party
applications
Analytics
applications
Event
logging
Transformation
and aggregation
E(T?)L
Analytics
applications
E(T?)L
47
48
49
50
Business
application
Website
Central
warehouse
Third party
applications
Analytics
applications
Event
logging
Transformation
and aggregation
E(T?)L
Analytics
applications
E(T?)L
51
Analytics
applications
• Salesforce
• Zendesk
• Mailchimp
• JIRA
• Hubspot
• Marketo
• NetSuite
• Adwords
• FB Ads
. . . .
• Email
• Slack
• Internal wikis
• Customer sites
52
Analytics
applications
• Salesforce
• Zendesk
• Mailchimp
• JIRA
• Hubspot
• Marketo
• NetSuite
• Adwords
• FB Ads
. . . .
• Email
• Slack
• Internal wikis
• Customer sites
• Analytics applications
• Custom built
• Processes
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4. Be unavoidable
THINGS WE LEARNED
54
Business
application
Website
Central
warehouse
Third party
applications
Analytics
applications
Event
logging
Transformation
and aggregation
E(T?)L
Communication and
information platforms
Analytics
applications
E(T?)L
55
Business
application
Website
Third party
applications
Analytics
applications
Analytics
applications
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4. Start by asking questions
THINGS WE LEARNED
57
Business
application
Website
Central
warehouse
Third party
applications
Analytics
applications
Event
logging
Transformation
and aggregation
E(T?)L
Communication and
information platforms
Analytics
applications
E(T?)L
58
Website
Website
Third party
applications
Analytics
applications
ETL
Event
logging
Business
application
Third party
applications
Communication and
information platforms
Analytics
applications
Transformation
and aggregation
ETL
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Mature data
infrastructure
New data
infrastructure
Architect Optimize
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Smaller team
Larger team
components
Work on
the system
Work on
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components
Architect
components
Optimize
the system
Optimize
the system
Architect
Mature data
infrastructure
New data
infrastructure
Smaller team
Larger team
63
The best plots don’t have holes
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PLOTCON NYC: Building a Flexible Analytics Stack