Alation Data Catalog vs. IBM Cloud Pak for Data

Alation is pretty easy to implement. We were able to do it ourselves with Alation's help, no 3rd party needed. We are currently migrating to Snowflake, and it has been helpful with prioritizing what gets migrated. It's great for searching for tables and views. I even use it when I'm trying to find fields in a large table. If I'm not sure if the field is called first_name, firstname, or fname, I can use Alation's table page, filter for fields with "name", and easily find it.

Incentivized

IBM Cloud Pak for Data with Netezza is well suited for clients who require fast, economical analytics processing. It is not designed to be used as a transactional processing environment. For example, a large customer is using it during the point of sale process. That makes little sense in that business case. However, to take analysis to market faster, it excels well in that space.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• I really like the AI and ML which enables us to source data in different sources for easy data-driven decisions.
• It's a cloud tool that keeps all our data safe, backed up ahs obtainable at any time without being exposed to any kind of risks or loss.
• I like the fact that ICP is main based on open source stack which adds value to products like VA or MCM.
• IBM support service is great and top-class.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• This offering is currently available on prem, in Azure, and soon in AWS. GCP availability will be in the future as there is demand in the marketplace
• The on premise offering starts with a Base + 0 model, which is a significant appliance. There are no 'mini' offerings as there were in the past.
• At Destiny, we work closely with IBM to help our clients perform budgetary planning.

Incentivized

It's a great tool in terms of user experience.

Incentivized

From the RightStart Program to the Customer Success team to technical support, Alation has it all covered. They respond quickly and expertly to answer my questions and fix my problems.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

Generally this tool has been very helpful and innovative because increase our workflow and collaboration using integrated multi-cloud platform. It also enables us to deploy in any flexible way like on-premises or cloud which saves time and hard disk space. It also enables us to connect, catalog, govern, transform and analyze data regardless of the area.

Incentivized

• Provides a place where people can go to find things
• When we first implemented, someone was concerned that people would now see what a mess our data environment was. I consider that a feature. We can't clean up if we can't see what we have.

Incentivized

• IBM Cloud helps us to manage data speed across every distributed stores and clouds.
• Acts as a single unified tool which brings all our data in one place where it's safe and easy to access.
• Enables all of our data users to collaborate from a single, unified interface that supports many services that are designed to work seamless.

Incentivized