Alation Data Catalog vs. IBM InfoSphere Information Server vs. Informatica Cloud Data Quality

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

Incentivized

Information Server is extremely useful to replace manual developments that require a lot of coding effort. It significantly increases the productivity of the initial development and the future maintenance of the processes since it has a visual development environment with self-documentation.

For effective data collaboration, systematic verification of customer information, and address, among others, Informatica Data Quality is a fruitful application to consider. Besides, Informatica Data Quality controls quality through a cleansing process, giving the company a professional outline of candid data profiling and reputable analytics. Finally, Informatica Data Quality allows the simplistic navigation of content, with a dashboard that supports predictability.

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

• IIS best for ETL ,not ELT , and many and diffrent source systems.
• It also can process big data , unstuctured data
• It is not only DWH , you can use infosphere for analys and see the bigger architecture of your OLTP systems

Incentivized

• The matching algorithms in IDQ are very powerful if you understand the different types that they offer (e.g., Hamming Distance, Jaro, Bigram, etc..). We had to play around with it to see which best suit our own needs of identifying and eliminating duplicate customers. Setting up the whole process (e.g., creating the KeyGenerator Transformation, setting up the matching threshold, etc..) can be somewhat time consuming and a challenge if you don't first standardize your data.
• The integration with PowerCenter is great if you have both. You can either import your mappings directly to PowerCenter or to an XML file. The only downside is that some of the transformations are unique to IDQ, so you are not really able to edit them once in PowerCenter.
• The standardizer transformation was key in helping us standardize our customer data (e.g., names, addresses, etc..). It was helpful due to having create a reference table containing the standardized value and the associated unstandardized values. What was great was that if you used Informatica Analyst, a business analyst could login and correct any of the values.

• 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

• I would be nice to have a new web development environment for DataStage.
• Connectivity Packs such as Pack for SAP Application are a little pricey.
• It is confusing for new developers the possibility of developing jobs using different execution engines such as Parallel or Server.

Incentivized

• Several partnerships diminishing the value of technologies
• Unable to get list of objects from Repository (like sources & targets) that don't have any dependency
• Scheduling: The built-in scheduling tool has many constraints such as handling Unix/VB scripts etc. Most enterprises use third party tools for this.

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

Incentivized

• Scale of implementation
• IBM techsupport

Incentivized

As pointed out earlier, due all the robust features IDQ has, our use f the product is successful and stable. IDQ is being used in multiple sources (from CRM application and in batch mode). As this is an iterative process, we are looking to improve our system efficiency using IDQ.

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.

Easy to use not only for developers but also business users

Incentivized

The application works well except an occasional error out while using the system. It usually gets fixed when restarting the Infa server

Incentivized

Performance works just fine. It was able to load 200+ business terms, 150+ DQ automation, etc. very well.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

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

DataStage is more robust and stable than ODI The ability to perform complex transformations or implement business rules is much more developed in DS

IDQ is used by a department at my organisation to ensure and enhance the data quality.
The usage was started with address standardization and now it had been brought to altogether a next level of quality check where it fixes duplicates, junk characters, standardize the names, streets, product descriptions.
In the past we had issues mainly with duplicate customers and products and this were affecting the sales projection and estimates.

Scalability works as expected and it is truly an enterprise system.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Productivity of the development of integration processes.
• Better documentation and governance.
• Reduce training costs of various technologies.

• Integration with tools like PowerCenter helped faster delivery of product, and at the same time conversion
• Reduce overall project cost due to bad data , bad quality, exceptions identified nearing go-live and post production
• Employee efficiency is increased exponentially due to more automated, customized tool