The first thing you need to know about data loading is that it's like a game of Tetris, but instead of fitting blocks into the space provided, you're matching up your source files with your data storage. A data loading utility is a program that enables you to import data from a text file or a folder into a database or data processing application. Alternatively, copy and paste data from a source file to a data storage or processing utility. It's an essential part of any data-related project, and it's not always the most fun part to do—but it's worth it! When you get all your data loaded into your database or software, you can start doing fun things with it. In database-based extraction and loading techniques, data is loaded into the destination application in a different format than the source location. Typically, data loading is used for this purpose. When you're looking to load data from one application into another, you have to consider how to do it most efficiently. This can be done using a database-based extraction and loading technique, or DBELT for short. While there are other ways to transfer data from one application to another, this method has proven highly effective for many companies because it's easy to use and quick. Data is like a human being: it can be copied, transformed and loaded when you copy data from one application to another. The format of the file changes from .doc to .csv, for example. This is often performed during the ETL process—extracting data from an external source, transforming it into a new format, and loading it into a database. In other words, when you copy data from one place to another, it's not just ensuring everything has been replicated correctly; there's also some transformation behind the scenes—the "how" part of this process.