[dragonwriter]

I think ETL is right from the perspective where E refers to “from the source of data” and L refers to “to the ultimate store of data”.

But the ETL functionality should itself lives in a (sub)system that has its own logical datastore (which may or may not be physically separate from the destination store), and things should be ELT where the L is with respect to that store. So, its E(LTE)L, in a sense.

[appplication]

For those confused as to whether ETL or ELT is ultimately more appropriate for you… almost everyone is really just doing ETLTLTLT or ELTLTLTL anyways. The distinction is really moot.

[ethbr1]

Maybe my understanding is incorrect, but expansion on the distinction.

Assumptions -- We're talking about two separate systems (source and destination) with non-neglible transfer time (although perhaps "quick")

ETL -- Performing the transform before/during the load, such that fields in the destination are not guaranteed to have existed in the source (i.e. 2 db model)

ELT -- Performing a 1:1 copy of source into an intermediary table/db (albeit perhaps with filtering), then performing a transform on the intermediary table/db to generate the destination table/db (either realized or materialized at query time), with the intermediary table/database history retained (i.e. 3 table/db model)

In short distinction, if regeneration or altering the destination is required, ETL relies on history being available in the upstream source.

ELT pulls control of that to the destination-owner, as they're retaining the raw data on their side.