What is the main task of the ETL process in data processing?

The main task of the ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) process is to extract data from various sources, transform it into the required format, and load it into a target system (for example, a data warehouse).

• Extract: obtaining data from databases, files, APIs, and other sources.
• Transform: cleaning, filtering, aggregating, changing the structure or format of data to meet analytical requirements.
• Load: placing the processed data into a final storage for further analysis.

Example: data is extracted from a sales database, transformed to remove duplicates and normalize date formats, then loaded into an analytical database.