Alation offers enterprise data intelligence solutions, including data search & discovery, data governance, data stewardship, analytics, and digital transformation. Alation operates in thethe data catalog market. With its Behavioral Analysis Engine, inbuilt collaboration capabilities, and open interfaces, Alation combines machine learning with human insight with the goal of tackle the most demanding challenges in data and metadata management.
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Alex Solutions
Score 10.0 out of 10
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Alex Solutions headquartered in Melbourne offers their enterprise data catalog, a marketplace for enterprise data that enables data-centric business outcomes.
Alation is well suited to helping a user find a column or even a query using a business term search. In this regard Alation is excellent because it's easy to not only associate these items with each other, but there are also many ways to link the column and/or query to that business term/concept
If you have information systems with lots of information but need a solution that ties together the data Alex Solution is really a great tool for this. We're a large international company, so this was our case. But if you are a smaller local company with not that much data available it could be you should look for other solutions for a start.
Ability to link objects using the @ symbol. It allows us to easily provide a way to get more information or context. So if the business concept is part of a hierarchy, we can link to the other terms in that hierarchy.
The customization is really helpful. Most object types have robust customization options. Others are less so, but it is improving. We've created multiple custom fields to support our data governance framework.
The search feature with filtering is helpful in narrowing down what you're looking for.
The lineage UI is not ready for primetime. I would not recommend this feature for my users at this time because it's too complex to understand and is visually difficult to track down specific paths.
The underlying infrastructure of the on-premise version of the software is fragile and unnecessarily complicated, using too many modules and technologies.
The license model of the on-premise version contains too many add-ons. I would like to pay one price and get all of the features.
Overall, we are happy with the functionality of the platform. While there are are areas that we would like to see further improvement in, the tooling is highly configurable and aligns well with our use case. A mature API layer makes it straightforward to integrate with other data tooling. Alation stands out for its pro-active engagement with their customers, both to resolve issues and in communicating their feature roadmap
Alation Data Catalog is generally easy to use for finding datasets, reviewing documentation, and understanding ownership. The platform makes data discovery more efficient and improves trust in shared assets. I rated it 7 because the navigation can be complex at times, and the search results could be more precise and easier to refine.
The account management and technical support teams are both excellent. There is regular account manager engagement, and technical issues are generally resolved very quickly. The vendor engages us in product development through regular updates on the product strategy & feature roadmap.
Key insight from implementing Alation is that, as a cloud-based SaaS product, the majority of effort is not infrastructure-related but instead focused on security configuration and integration with existing platforms, including identity management, access controls, and metadata connectivity to core data systems. Because of its data profiling functionality, careful consideration had to be given to data security and data sovereignty.
Alation provided the right balance of connection with systems in use, trusted reputation and affordability. The product integrates with current ways of working and does not require reorganisation within other lines of business.
I have seen companies with Alex and Collibra, and if I should choose one of these tools based on my knowledge and feedback from the users, I would definitely choose Alex Solutions. From a user perspective Alex Solutions is easier to use - it really is just more intuitive and for most users that can make the difference between using and not using the solution
We've had limited but very positive impact for 3 data subject matter experts. In the past they were fielding very similar questions from users stumbling on their data. Now, rather than responding to each email or chat message, they not only direct users to the catalog but they also reach out to me to do a walk-through of Alation's other features.
Another positive impact is having the data dictionary live in one location. This has been tremendous in making the dictionaries accessible and consistent.
It's always difficult to predict the future, but the feedback from our organization is clear. Data-driven decisions are better decisions for sure.
No service or solution is free, but seen in the bigger picture the better decision making surely outweigh the costs of Alex Solutions
Our organization has way more focus on data and ensuring correct data collection. This is probably the best impact we have had seen from a data manager's perspective
