Azure cloud-based data integration service for creating data-driven workflows. Like having a data assembly line that moves and transforms information between different systems.
A retail company uses Data Factory to move sales data from stores to their central data warehouse nightly.
Azure Data Factory is a managed cloud service for building and scheduling data integration pipelines. Comparable services include AWS Glue (serverless ETL and orchestration), Google Cloud Data Fusion (managed data integration/ETL based on CDAP), and OCI Data Integration (ETL/ELT-style data movement and transformation). All focus on connecting to many sources, orchestrating workflows, and moving/transforming data, but differ in connectors, authoring experience, and pricing models.