DBArtisan vs. SolarWinds Task Factory

DBArtisan is functional and suitable for any sized organization that needs to monitor its database resources and running queries.

Incentivized

Since I started working with this great tool all data analysis programs have been running effectively. Implementation of projects and tasks have been effective and reliable. Data collected from each department gives us working plan on better management of various programs. The Dimension Merge SCD Transform helps us to load large volumes of data within a short period of time.

Incentivized

• User interface is easy to use, and in some ways better than Toad. The left hand side shows all databases, and you can drill down to instance, storage, schemas, tablespaces, and performance views. The right hand side displays the details of the selected object.
• This is the best tool if you want to manage multiple RDBMS platforms in a single tool using the same familiar interface. Other third party tools can do it also, but it's not nearly as integrated as this, and may require additional plug-ins installed. DBArtisan excels at this, and can perform cross-platform data migrations easily.
• It has different DB analysts, which can help diagnose issues with performance, optimize storage, detect fragmentation, and plan for capacity growth. For almost any action you want to take, you can generate the DDL for preview, and/or schedule it to run at a specific time.

Incentivized

• The single most beneficial component to Task Factory is the Upsert component. If you're familiar with writing MERGE statements in T-SQL, you'll appreciate the Upsert component. Drag the component into your Data Flow and a few clicks later you have a MERGE without the code complexities.
• Where some native SSIS components leave you wanting more, Task Factory extends on many of these components as well as support for data sources not native to SSIS components.
• The number of extra components that come in the Task Factory tool kit will expand your tool belt to do just about anything you need or want to accomplish in SSIS.

Incentivized

• Locks up far too often
• Licensing structure is expensive

Incentivized

• It was built by Pragmatic Works who sold it to SentryOne and now Solar Winds, concerned about future support. SolarWinds is discontinuing support for related products such as BiXpress.
• Had issues with connecting to certain versions of SQL Server - would fail when deploying one package - had to deploy the entire solutions.
• Occasional random failures observed with the Filter tranform.

Incentivized

Task Factory has become a key product for our use of doing ETL work in SSIS. Their custom SSIS components allow us to work simply on the data engineering side of things. We can ignore the lower level work needed to connect to disparate data sources. This allows us to work faster and provide more value to the business

Incentivized

Compared to some of the other transformations I have worked with, it really is pretty simple for the type of functionality you get

Incentivized

I have never tried their support so the number above is meaningless

Incentivized

Overall, the best vendor we currently have on the data side of the house. No issues, issues are resolved very quickly and upgrades go without any issues.

Incentivized

Overall it went smoothly. Had a couple of gotchas with licensing and upgrading but nothing that really stopped us.

Incentivized

DBArtisan does not have an in-depth performance analyzer for databases.

Incentivized

ZappySys is an alternative provider that we tested. However, we found the ease of use, set up and installation to be much simplier and quicker using Task Factory. ZappySys has a number of the same connectors but are more difficult to setup and the GUI is not as intuitive and simple to use.

Incentivized

• It has a positive ROI on our organization. It's better than OEM and SQL Developer. Although the license could be expensive, it is perfect for large organizations, especially with multiple RDBMS platforms.
• Most features are redundant between DBArtisan and Toad. I would not recommend using both if you already own one of them. Just download the trial for the one you're not using, and see what works best for your organization.
• DBArtisan is great for DBAs and would be my personal preference. Toad is good for developers and DBAs alike but I feel like sometimes the interface is too busy and too clumsy to use.

Incentivized

• We were able to support our developers with Task Factory features and reduce the development time by 40%.
• Recently Task Factory has changed their pricing module and it seems to be pretty costly for our process. Our business team has started to evaluate whether this is worth it going forward.

Incentivized