We use SQLite as a data integration tool. We connect to a third-party system's esoteric database using an ODBC driver. Then export tables to a SQLite database.

We use SQLite as a data integration tool. We connect to a third-party system's esoteric database using an ODBC driver. Then export tables to a SQLite database. This process can sometimes take a few minutes but is generally quite quick. Then the SQLite database is compressed and uploaded to cloud blob storage. Effectively at this point it is a "snapshot" of the third party system's state. Our cloud system is then tailored with SQLite queries to know how to use and understand that foreign schema. By doing it this way we avoid needing to know several dozen SQL dialects for esoteric database engines that "never won the race in the 1990s" (think Progress, Ingres, Paradox, etc). It means we only need to know SQLite - a current, OSS and well supported variant of SQL. Epic cost and time savings are the net result.