Alation Data Catalog vs. Informatica Cloud Data Quality

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

Helps to increase productivity, optimize costs, and democratize data across multiple cloud environments with cloud ETL and ELT. Capacity to integrate data sources at scale and with ease. Has cloud data integration capabilities that cover diverse sets of patterns, use cases, and users ensuring we have well-architected and seamless automated data pipelines.

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

• 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

• 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.

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.

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

Incentivized

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

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

Informatica Data Quality has a wide range of cleansing features, that are detailed, professional, and accurate in scaling down the required database. Further, Informatica Data Quality ensures there is proper collaboration, and this fosters businesses to have the freedom of working closely with several programs. Finally, Informatica Data Quality design is authentic and allows personalization.

Incentivized

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

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

• 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