Data ingestion is the process of acquiring and loading data into a processing and analysis environment, such as a data warehouse, Data Lake, or lakehouse platform. It involves retrieving data from various sources, including transactional systems, business applications, databases, files, SaaS systems, and APIs.
In practice, data ingestion represents the first stage of building a data pipeline. It can be performed in batch mode (batch processing) or in real time (stream processing). Platforms such as Talend enable the design and automation of ingestion processes, quality control of data at the acquisition stage, and secure, scalable delivery of data to subsequent layers of the data architecture.