FlexConnect: Build Your Own Custom Data Connectors

Data is always fragmented across multiple systems, making it difficult for businesses to integrate and access the insights they need fast enough. Traditional data integration methods are often slow and cumbersome, creating bottlenecks that impede immediate decision-making.

FlexConnect is a data connection and compute service within the GoodData Analytics Lake that addresses these challenges by enabling businesses to build custom data connectors for any data source — whether cloud-based, on-premises, or homegrown. This self-service, flexible solution allows teams to access and transform data on the fly, significantly accelerating Time to Value (TtV).

Beyond speed, FlexConnect ensures security and governance at every stage by allowing business logic to be embedded directly into the data connection itself. This means that at run-time, the logic is executed when the data is returned. FlexConnect maintains the integrity of your data while meeting regulatory standards, reducing the risks associated with data handling.

*Good to know: The Analytics Lake forms a ‘composable data service architecture’ that combines the best open-source data services to deliver data governance, high concurrency, multi-tenancy, and efficient performance for data product developers.*

See FlexConnect in action

Learn how it enables you to quickly and easily build custom integrations to any data source.

Take a tour

Why FlexConnect Is Your Data Integration Solution

FlexConnect enables efficient data integration without compromising flexibility or performance. Here’s what it provides:

Universal Data Source Connectivity

FlexConnect connects businesses to a wide range of data sources — cloud-based, on-premises, hybrid, SQL, NoSQL, APIs, and machine learning models. With this seamless integration, organizations can access virtually any data source without relying on third-party solutions.

Self-Service Integration

Empower teams to build and manage their own data connections without relying on vendor support. This self-service approach reduces delays, accelerates customized data pipeline creation, and improves Time to Value.

Embedded Data Processing

FlexConnect allows users to build on-the-fly transformations, apply complex business logic, or call ML operations. This logic is executed at run-time within the connection itself, ensuring important business rules and transformation logic are applied in all situations.

Integration With GoodData

Once processed, FlexConnect integrates the transformed data into the semantic model, ensuring unified and high-quality analytics across all endpoints — dashboards, APIs, and SDKs.

FlexConnect Architecture

To dive deeper into FlexConnect’s architecture and understand how it works in the context of the GoodData platform in enabling real-time big data processing, high-speed analytics, and custom computations (e.g., via Python and Rust), read our detailed technical article [here].

How FlexConnect Powers Data Integration for Industry Success

FlexConnect offers a versatile solution for diverse industries, supporting high-performance analytics and enabling efficient data workflows. Below are some examples of how different sectors can leverage FlexConnect to drive actionable insights and improve decision-making:

Integration of External APIs

Whether integrating with third-party APIs or internal systems, FlexConnect offers custom connectors that integrate data directly into GoodData’s semantic model. This streamlines workflows and eliminates the need for slow, traditional batch processing.

If you are interested, we highlight this use-case in an article about Weather Forecast.

Connecting NoSQL Databases

As businesses rely more on NoSQL databases like MongoDB, FlexConnect makes it easy to integrate and transform unstructured data. It maps this data into a dimensional model, providing a richer, more user-friendly experience within GoodData’s platform while abstracting technical complexity.

Our article about MongoDB connection can help you understand how this works in practice.

Real-Time Machine Learning Integration

FlexConnect makes it easier than ever to incorporate machine learning models directly into analytics environments. Businesses can use real-time predictive insights from ML algorithms within their business intelligence workflows, driving faster and more accurate decision-making.

If you want to see how to connect a pickled model, check out our article on machine learning.

Centralized Data Governance

For organizations using Unity Catalog, FlexConnect ensures seamless integration of diverse data assets with strong governance, data discovery, and collaboration features. This allows teams to maintain compliance without needing extensive data replication or movement.

Learn how to connect tables from Unity Catalog to your BI tools. This guide provides a ready-to-use approach to getting started quickly and efficiently.

Real-Time Analytics With Streaming Data

Businesses dealing with real-time streaming data — such as stock price feeds or social media insights — can use FlexConnect to connect to data sources like Apache Kafka. This setup enables real-time analytics, allowing teams to make quick, data-driven decisions with minimal delay.

To put this more into perspective, we wrote an article about financial transactions in Kafka.

Why Choose FlexConnect

FlexConnect is designed to meet the demands of modern data analytics with a range of features that set it apart:

1. Open-Source Flexibility: Built on open standards like Apache Arrow and Flight RPC, FlexConnect is designed for scalability and efficiency. This flexibility allows businesses to integrate a wide variety of data sources with ease, regardless of where the data resides, all while minimizing vendor lock-in and optimizing costs.
2. Low-Latency Data Processing: With FlexConnect, businesses eliminate the delays associated with traditional batch processing. Data is processed at run-time within the connection, meaning teams can act on data more quickly, improving decision-making across the organization.
3. Adaptability Across Teams and Use Cases: FlexConnect is not just for data engineers. Whether you are a business analyst, data scientist, or IT administrator, FlexConnect can be used to achieve your data goals, ensuring consistency and accuracy of information across all teams and use cases. This improves collaboration, reduces friction between teams, and enhances productivity.

Simplify, Secure, and Scale with FlexConnect

FlexConnect transforms how businesses integrate, process, and utilize data. It accelerates Time to Value by empowering teams to build custom data connections, quickly turning raw data into actionable insights. With comprehensive governance and compliance measures built into the platform, FlexConnect ensures secure, compliant, and high-quality data processing throughout the entire workflow. Its flexibility, real-time data processing, and adaptability enable businesses to act swiftly, fostering smarter decision-making and sustained growth.

Ready To Unlock the Full Potential of Your Data?

We’d love to show you how FlexConnect can transform your data integration and analytics workflows. Contact us today to schedule a demo or speak with an expert about how FlexConnect can help you build custom data connectors, integrate real-time data, and drive smarter, more data-driven decisions.