Alation Data Catalog vs. IBM Knowledge Catalog

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

The IBM Watson Knowledge Catalog is most well suited for large companies. With large companies storing data for a long amount of time, this can be helpful to allow all team members to find documents with ease. It would be less appropriate for storage that is deleted very often or does not needs to be saved for long amounts of time.

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

• Data discovery.
• Technical Data Lineage.
• Business Data Lineage.
• Data .
• Multiple Data Catalog Management.
• Creation of Governance Rules.
• Data Masking.

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

• I think an industry-specific data catalog service will be good.
• Effective alignment of IBM consulting services and bringing in an Industry point of view will be great.
• Effective reach out like roadshows, etc. will be good.

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

The IBM Watson Knowledge Catalog is a great amount of storage for the price. It is easily accessed by all users in the company. It provides great search features and clear pathways to locate documents. This is great for the team and our client when needing access to a specific document.

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

• The negative note: is that it needs to have a very secure cloud infrastructure and with its data well defined for integration with other databases.
• The positive point: allows for quick data discoveries aiding a quick implementation of privacy programs.

Incentivized