Flexter Benefits

In today’s data-driven landscape, the speed at which you can move from raw data to actionable insight determines your competitive edge. Yet, for many enterprises, hierarchical data formats like XML and JSON remain a significant bottleneck.

While industry standards such as ISO 20022, HL7, and ACORD are essential for data exchange, they are notoriously difficult to process. The primary challenge lies in converting these deeply nested, hierarchical structures into a clean, relational format suitable for modern data analysis and BI tools. Traditionally, data engineers have been forced to write thousands of lines of brittle XSLT or Python code, or struggle with complex, manual SQL using native database XML and JSON features that are often not fit for purpose. Furthermore, standard ETL tools frequently fall short of the required automation, still require significant manual configuration and custom “plumbing” that makes the process slow, error-prone, and prohibitively expensive.

At Sonra, we believe there is a better way. Enter Flexter, our automated XML/JSON converter designed to eliminate the “plumbing” and let your team focus on the analytics.

1. Zero Coding: From Weeks to Hours

The primary value of Flexter lies in the total elimination of manual effort, delivering two critical business advantages: a drastic reduction in Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) and immediate data availability.

By automating the parsing and conversion process, Flexter bypasses the lengthy, multi-month project life cycles typically associated with manual engineering. Instead of waiting for a developer to hand-code complex mappings, Flexter analyses your source data (XML/XSD or JSON) to automatically generate a target relational schema without any human intervention. This means your data is available for analysis straight away, rather than at the end of a long, expensive development queue.

The impact is transformative. Consider our work with Aer Lingus: they had a project that had been failing for 50 days under an outsourced vendor. Flexter delivered a working solution in just one day, saving an estimated 120 man-days of engineering time. As their VP of Data Management put it: “You did in one day what we could not do in 3 years.”

2. Integrity Over “Flattening”

Many tools attempt to handle XML by “flattening” it into a single, massive CSV-style table (OBT – One Big Table). This creates a nightmare for downstream users. Analysts are forced to write complex deduplication logic, storage costs explode due to redundant data, and query performance suffers.

Flexter takes a sophisticated approach: Relational Normalisation.

• Automatic Keys: Flexter generates globally unique Primary and Foreign Keys.
• Standard SQL: Analysts can join tables using familiar SQL, maintaining the original data hierarchy exactly.
• Schema Optimisation: Our proprietary algorithms (Elevate and Reuse) simplify the schema, preventing “table explosion” and making the data immediately consumable for BI tools like Snowflake, BigQuery, and Databricks.

3. Scale That Meets Government Standards

When dealing with massive volumes, traditional parsers often crash. Built on Apache Spark, Flexter’s architecture is designed to scale both horizontally and vertically to meet the strictest SLAs.

• Scale Out (Horizontal): Distribute the workload across a cluster of nodes. To double your processing speed, simply add more nodes. This is ideal for processing millions of small files simultaneously.
• Scale Up (Vertical): Utilise more powerful individual machines with high RAM and CPU for intensive tasks. Combined with streaming technology, this allows Flexter to parse individual XML files that are multi-gigabytes in size without memory errors.

In a recent project for a Government Ministry, Flexter demonstrated this power by processing a backlog of 20 million XML files in approximately 11 minutes. This level of scalability ensures you never miss an SLA, regardless of data growth.

4. Eliminate Project Risk with a PoC

One of the biggest hurdles in data engineering is the risk of project failure or spiralling budgets. Custom-coded solutions often run over time and underperform. We eliminate this uncertainty through a Proof of Concept (PoC).

By running a PoC with Flexter, we prove the solution works with your specific data before you commit to a full-scale deployment. This “try before you buy” approach removes the risk of project failure and ensures your budget is spent on a proven, working pipeline rather than endless engineering hours.

5. Future-Proof Your Data Pipeline

Data formats evolve. When a new version of an XSD arrives (e.g. moving from FpML 4.0 to 5.0), Flexter detects the drift and automatically adapts the target schema, generating the necessary upgrade scripts.

Furthermore, Flexter acts as a “glass box.” It provides a full metadata catalogue, automated data lineage, and even generates ER diagrams, ensuring your documentation is always in sync with your data.

The Bottom Line

By choosing Flexter, enterprises typically reduce their conversion costs by 80%. You aren’t just buying a tool; you are reclaiming your engineering team’s time.

As Alexey Shchedrin, an Enterprise Architect, noted: “Flexter is an amazing tool. It cut down my XML load from hours to minutes… I didn’t have to write a single line of code.”

Ready to unlock your data goldmine? Contact Sonra today for a demo of Flexter.