Why do Data Scientists rely on Ardent’s Data Engineering expertise for Data Preparation?

The different roles of a Data Scientist and Data Engineer

Of all data users, Data Scientists are considerable consumers and play a crucial role in extracting valuable insights from complex datasets. They possess advanced analytical skills and are adept at developing sophisticated models and AI/ML algorithms. So why do they rely on Ardent to manage their Data?

There are many different roles in an effective data science team, with Data Engineering, Data Scientists and Machine Learning engineers at the core. Each contributes to the collection, analysis, and modelling of data by applying their unique skills at the various stages in the Data Lifecycle.

At Ardent we have noticed that many project-based data acquisitions have ended up in data silos, inaccessible to other teams whose Data ownership runs through an organisation and even externally, often out of reach of the Data Scientist. This data is coming from multiple disparate sources that cannot be controlled by the Analytics team until it is in a format and environment that is fit-for-purpose and accessible to the right tools.

Partnering with Ardent helps unlock the potential of your data and bring your vision to life. For over a decade Ardent has worked with organisations where data ownership is spread across technical and non-technical data owners and consumers . For these clients, outsourcing to Ardent has added value to the information that is being collected through better accountability and accessibility. Data Scientists can rest assured that the value of their asset is optimised throughout the data life cycle and not just at the point of Analysis.

It is vital for Data Scientists to be able to trust the data that they are modelling. An expert Data Engineering team provides the backbone for the Data infrastructure and takes responsibility for the end-to-end life cycle from data ingestion to deployment. Enabling data pipelines that are reliable, efficient and secure.

Increased Focus on your Core Business Functions

Many of the clients we work with have an internal team where they focus on the core business of Data Science, and we work as an extension of your team helping to deliver new features, managing product roll-outs and implementation of the data infrastructure that allows organisations to scale and run optimally and Data Scientists to focus on their key tasks leveraging the valuable benefits of data analysis.

Outsourcing to a specialist like Ardent saves valuable time and expense Our Data Engineers understand the business goals and conduct research to deal with any unexpected business problems. As a part of your team, our in-house technology experts and talented engineers face complex challenges head-on and deliver innovative, agile and future proof solutions to help organisations thrive.

Here's how one client describes that relationship.

"we work with Ardent as a cohesive unit. They understand our project goals and work hard towards our shared measure of success. Their ability to scale software resource in terms of numbers and expertise helps us successfully manage new projects."

Nick Church, Director of Engineering

In fact, as the table below suggests, the roles shared between Data Scientists and Engineers are both different and complementary offering a streamlined approach to collaborative working.

The Data Lifecycle: end-to-end Preparation, Analysis and Modelling

At Ardent we come across various different data lifecycles across our clients in various industries. However, if we were to capture a generic model it would look like this:

It is hugely important for the success of any Big Data project and for AI and ML to accurately reflect the data used to train your algorithms, that the information ingested is clean and optimised for the purpose it is designed a. With many years of working across diverse business sectors, the skilled Engineers at Ardent can advise on the way data pipelines are created and edited to meet these business needs. Using Ardent as your data partner will ensure a no worry, no fuss approach to the business of data preparation and curation.

Advantages of using a World class Talent Pool

One of the key benefits of outsourcing your data engineering needs is the ability to tap into a global talent pool of multi-skilled engineers to fill the in-demand skills-gaps a that may be hard to find or too expensive to maintain in-house. Ardent is a company with skilled engineers from diverse back grounds and culture a working across three key time zones ensuring around-the-clock availability and support.

Access to the latest best-in-breed technologies and solutions

It is hugely important to practice continuous benchmarking against industry best practice and the latest innovative technologies. Ardent understands emerging trends and technologies, and embeds this in its culture, through an R&D Hub with dedicated teams assigned to explore Tech that we have not been using or is emerging. Driving Ardent’s Innovation series

Furthermore, the team at is committed to investing in our technology partners; leading Cloud hyperscale’s as well as open-source solutions and software vendors. This enables Ardent to continually deliver robust, scalable growth and next-generation solutions over the top of leading tech, so that client solutions remain relevant and impactful. Our Technology Partners

Outsourcing the data engineering function allows organisations to navigate the rapidly evolving landscape to make informed decisions and avoid costly mistakes.

A faster time to market

Data preparation is a vital step in the data analysis process that involves transforming raw data into clean, organised, and structured formats suitable for analysis. While data scientists have the skills to perform these tasks, partnering with a specialised Data Engineering company can ensure the quality and reliability of your data, helping you make informed decisions around data cleaning, integration, normalisation, and feature engineering.

Ardent has the advantage of standardising data in line with external quality factors, wider data governance requirements, and speed of delivery because of repeatable established processes and methodologies that allow the team to deliver projects faster and more efficiently than an in-house team, avoiding bottle necks, hiring delays and competing priorities.

Ensuring that diverse datasets are in symphony

Often, we find that the data needed for applications varies greatly in the format volume and velocity of data ingested. Ardent brings a wealth of experience in handling diverse datasets and optimising these including video, audio, text, tables, charts, emails, and graphics, working closely with the DS team to ensure the data can be optimised for analysis.

This combination of expertise enables us to navigate the complexities of data extraction, ensuring that relevant data is collected accurately and efficiently in accordance with its origin and purpose; and tailored to the client’s bespoke needs; processed, validated, and then enriched with intelligent algorithms providing a single-point-of-truth from which the DS team can perform their role more effectively.

Assessing your Storage and Accessibility options

Ardent regularly explores the Data Storage choices available to clients, from the newest innovations to the best-fit designs for legacy applications, offering a discovery and consultative approach on the pros and cons of Cloud and on-premises data migration and the combination of storage and compute facilities that are increasingly combined in the latest Data warehousing solutions. Cloud Migration – what you need to know.

Data Transformation and Migration

Over the last decade many legacy storage solutions have lagged behind in performance compared to the flourish of new services combining storage and compute solutions. An experienced Data management team needs to combine the Data Engineering and Data Science skillsets to gain full support across the organisation for any refresh or transformation projects to optimise existing storage or migrate to a more cost-effective and scalable solution such as a Data Warehouse solution. As an independent Data Engineering house Ardent can offer expert independent advice and support in each scenario.

For a data migration, Ardent helps organisations to prepare each careful step of the process to reduce the risks in investment and time-to-operation. Whether performed in a big bang or at a trickle, all checkpoints and milestones are observed and monitored so that the transfer of data is not only smooth, but secure and within time and budget.
4 Essential steps to data warehouse migration

At Ardent we worked closely with our client, a Media giant to migrate the ETL infrastructure handling real-time broadcasting and commercial data. By migrating services to a single platform based on Databricks we significantly reduced data reporting time, and through automated error resolving, which is offered by Databricks, we ensure that the flow of business-critical data is uninterrupted.

We are able to recommend and implement the solutions that are right for each project and tailored to the client’s technology preferences, industry best practices and budgetary requirements. The tools we use coupled with our bespoke development capabilities enables data scientists to work with high-quality, reliable data. With Ardent's expertise, data scientists can focus on their core responsibilities of analysis and modelling, while leaving the intricacies of data preparation to the specialists.

Operational Monitoring and Support

Our expert team can help fill skills gaps in data administration to efficiently ensure that the data collected is secure and accessible with automated monitoring and timely resolution making sure you have a continuous supply of quality data. This managed service relieves the pressure and fills the gap between the IT department and the Data Science team. Find out more about our staff augmentation support service here.

For a long-standing blue chip market research client, we have implemented a 24/7 robust operational monitoring and support solution based on technologies like PagerDuty and Cloud Watch. The client has the peace of mind knowing that their data is being monitored 24/7 by our technology and teams, to ensure that their data is delivered as it should. As data volumes grow, data scientists often face challenges in managing their increased complexity and workload, changes in requirements, new data feeds and data visualisation requirements or software version updates that can potentially break the smooth flow of data.

With proven techniques and quality procedures in place, Ardent helps businesses reduce the cost of change requests, reduces the time to operation and the cost of ongoing business-critical processes to maintain the data.
When you require high data availability to meet business or customer demands the specialist engineers at Ardent can be called upon for their expertise to ensure that data pipelines remain robust and secure. Our Maintenance and Support service combines off-the-shelf observability automation tools and manual oversight by our teams working 24-7 to ensure no potential downtime, data drops or bad data affects the smooth flow of data. https://www.ardentisys.com/managed-services/data-engineering-teams/

In Summary

There is a bridge between the two disciplines of Data Science and Data Engineering that is strengthened by outsourcing your data engineering needs to Ardent. While Data Scientists excel in statistical analysis and modelling, our data engineers possess expertise in scalable data processing, data infrastructure, and performance optimisation, simplifying data to make it more reliable and useful for Data Scientists to work with

Outsourcing your data engineering services to Ardent offers a wide range of benefits that can drive business growth, so Data Scientists can focus on extracting valuable insights from data, confident in the knowledge that the data preparation process, access to the latest technologies and tools, is being handled efficiently and effectively by an expert team.

Ensuring timely data availability for real-time, mission-critical data with Ardent data engineering service

Ardents' team of highly skilled data engineers are proficient in world-leading data technologies and can make recommendations based on your unique needs and requirements. Whether you have a preferred tech stack or want expert guidance on the technologies right for your data and business, we can help.

Are you facing any of these challenges:
• Delayed data reporting turnaround
• Data delays, gaps and dropouts
• Slow data performance and speed

If you are, please do get in touch with Adam Nichols at on 07459 798 870 or email adam.nichols@ardentisys.com