Fivetran has enhanced its automated data movement platform with a new type of Lite Connector that will enable it to integrate with hundreds of applications in 2023, aiming for 500. The new Lite connectors are next-generation connectors that will, one assumes, over time replace most of the existing standard connectors that Fivetran already offers.
Lite Connectors are built with security in mind and deliver high-quality data pipelines that maintain data integrity. Importantly they reduce the time to develop every new connector for any SaaS service. The Lite connectors can be built in as few as 30 days. What isn’t clear is whether Fivetran will replace the existing connectors with the new methodology or add to the existing portfolio of over 100 connectors.
Clarification from Fivetran:
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- Rather than replace, the Lite connectors will complement the existing portfolio of connectors.
- Fivetran will rapidly release new Lite connectors over the next year to add to its current portfolio of 300+ connectors. With the addition of Lite connectors, Fivetran expects to offer nearly 500 fully-managed connectors in total by the end of the year.
Fivetran has already built 90 Lite connectors, including ones for Okta, Slack, Chargebee, Gong, and WooCommerce. On its Connectors page, it reveals that connectors for Yahoo DSP, Google Search Ads 360, The Trade Desk, Amazon Selling Partner and BambooHR are available soon. Again, whether these were built with the standard connector or the new Lite connector is unclear.
Clarification: Fivetran confirmed these are standard connectors.
Customers seem to like the new connectors, with Jake Hannan, Senior Manager, Data Platform at Sigma, commenting, “We’ve received a tonne of value from Fivetran’s new Slack Lite connector. Our support team was looking to pull channel data to better understand the patterns of questions coming from our users and the internal SMEs who are best able to answer them.
“The connector set-up was easy and the experience has been the same high quality we’ve seen from other Fivetran connectors. We try to keep the majority of our data ingestion in the Fivetran ecosystem, and are interested in pursuing Lite connectors through the By Request Programme for several other applications we use.”
Why Lite Connectors are different
The difference between the Lite Connector and the standard connectors is that the Lite Connector leverages existing APIs during the build process. Standard Connectors looked at an application’s business workflows. This change enabled Fivetran to build connectors in a fraction of the time it used to. However, it almost certainly requires a mature API to be in place, which means for some older applications, the standard method will still hold value.
Fivetran has also shortened the release cycle to align with the delivery time of new Lite Connectors. Customers can expect far more connectors for more applications than ever before. Both sets of connectors rely on consumption-based pricing, with discounts for higher usage. Pricing is not available on the website.
Correction: Pricing is available here. Historical syncs are free and customers only pay for rows that are inserted, updated or deleted by their connectors – not total rows.
Alexander Lovell, Head of Product at Fivetran, commented, “Our customers, like all enterprises, are under enormous budgetary pressure and are looking for every available way to streamline their operations and cut infrastructure costs. Developing homegrown connectors and maintaining data pipelines is a heavy economic burden they do not need to take on.
“Our By Request Programme and Lite connectors provide us with the opportunity to help solve the challenge of cloud data integration more comprehensively and efficiently than ever before. This new level of responsiveness is a game changer for data teams small and large.”
Fivetran is to accelerate the development of hundreds of new services. Fivetran standard and Lite connectors offer consumption-based pricing with built-in discounts for higher data volumes.
Enterprise Times: What does this mean
With enterprises already using over 1,000 applications on average, according to recent research by MuleSoft, anything that helps streamline data flows to a central repository is welcome. The new Lite Connectors will enable organisations to embed applications in their software stack faster than ever. With Fivetran offering security, quality and integrity for these data pipelines, it will hope to attract more customers and retain existing ones if the time to value decreases.
Fivetran has not detailed, in this release, any enhancements around the integrity and security it offers for its connectors. There is also the question of the available APIs and what happens when these are incomplete. Does the process have to start again with a standard (lite?) connector or can organisations mix and match?
This article was updated following feedback from Fivetran