dbt vs. Oracle Data Service Integrator

The prerequisite is that you have a supported database/data warehouse and have already found a way to ingest your raw data. Then dbt is very well suited to manage your transformation logic if the people using it are familiar with SQL. If you want to benefit from bringing engineering practices to data, dbt is a great fit. It can bring CI/CD practices, version control, automated testing, documentation generation, etc. It is not so well suited if the people managing the transformation logic do not like to code (in SQL) but prefer graphical user interfaces.

Incentivized

Once Oracle Data Service Integrator is set up properly, it is quite simple to snatch data from a myriad of disparate sources and put them into a single repository. Due to cost factors, it is not for the faint of heart; however, if you can handle it, the benefits will quickly outpace the initial investment. To take full advantage of the power of ODSI, I would recommend the training that Oracle provides.

Incentivized

• dbt supports version control through GIT, this allows teams to collaborate and track the data transformation logic.
• dbt allows us to build data models which helps to break complex transformation logic into simple and smaller logic.
• dbt is completely based on SQL which allows data analyst and data engineers to build the transformation logic.
• dbt can be easily integrated with snowflake.

Incentivized

• Very easy to use. Very easy to just grab data when needed.
• Very robust and has so many features to move and transform data.
• Functionality is very easy to implement with other Oracle data products.

Incentivized

• Field-level lineage (currently at table level)
• Documentation inheritance - if a field is documented the downstream field of the same name could inherit the doc info
• Adding python model support (in beta now)

Incentivized

• If not bundled with other products, the price can be prohibitively expensive
• SAP connectors tend to be a little expensive and slightly difficult to use
• The audit module had some difficulties debugging failed instances

Incentivized

dbt is very easy to use. Basically if you can write SQL, you will be able to use dbt to get what you need done. Of course more advanced users with more technical skills can do more things.

Incentivized

I actually don't know what the alternative to dbt is. I'm sure one must exist other than more 'roll your own' options like Apache Airflow, say, bu tin terms of super easy managed/cloud data transforms, dbt really does seem to be THE tool to use. It's $50/month per dev, BUT there's a FREE version for 1 dev seat with no read-only access for anyone else, so you can always start with that and then buy yourself a seat later.

Incentivized

While we tested and evaluated multiple data service providers, we came to choose Oracle Data Service Integrator since our infrastructure was so heavily dependent on Oracle software. The implementation would be easier and the difference in the number of features and performance wasn't enough to sway us in another direction.

Incentivized

• Simplified our BI layer for faster load times
• Increased the quality of data reaching our end users
• Makes complex transformations manageable

Incentivized

• It provided terrific bulk data movement and data transformation services which we desperately needed
• It allowed to reduce development costs and lower the total cost of ownership among disparate architectures
• The enterprise edition's ELT allowed us to generate native code for wildly varied RDBMS

Incentivized