Which statement about ELT is true?

• A. ETL transforms data before loading into the warehouse; ELT loads raw data first and transforms inside the warehouse.
• B. ETL loads raw data first and transforms in the warehouse.
• C. ELT is identical to ETL.
• D. ELT leverages warehouse compute for scalability and is common with modern data lakes.

Answer: (D)

The idea being tested is where data transformations happen and how compute is used in processing data. In ELT, you load the raw data into the target storage first and then perform the transformations inside that storage using its own compute resources. This approach scales well because cloud warehouses and data lakes provide elastic, powerful processing that can handle large volumes without moving data around for every transform.

That’s why the statement describing ELT as leveraging warehouse compute for scalability and being common with modern data lakes is the true one. With ETL, the transformation happens before loading, so you clean and shape the data first and only then store it in the warehouse. ELT isn’t identical to ETL—the two differ in both where the transformation occurs and how the compute is utilized.