Data integration processes (often called ETL when building a data warehouse or data prep when an analyst is massaging data) can take place in Pentaho so that the massive work of massaging and cleaning data does not have to be tightly bound to a specific data warehouse technology or to complicated programming methods.

FORBES: Ideas for Solving the 'Data' Problem First, the 'Big' Problem Second: The Pentaho Way

The Extract, Transformation and Load (ETL) process that cleans up the data and ensures data integrity, the data warehouse that acts as a scalable and reliable repository for data derived from many sources, and some form of search acceleration for large data volumes are all still needed, and an enlightened IT group is needed to install and maintain them.

FORBES: Tableau Software's Pat Hanrahan on "What Is a Data Scientist?"