IBM InfoSphere Information Server vs. Improvado vs. Oracle Data Integration Platform Cloud (discontinued)

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.

This solution helped us when we were stuck trying to explore data deeper and didn’t have enough resources to prepare data for further analysis. The software solves data integrity problems bringing more granularity to all insights. Integration with data visualization tools and well-arranged insights shows how each of the company’s marketing channels performs in real-time. Improvado is also useful for risk mitigation when launching or adjusting marketing strategies. It may also become a valuable tool for businesses, who are aiming at automation and the elimination of routine processes. ETL processes automation unleashes marketing analysts’ potential granting them more time for research of marketing reports.

For daily transactional information and customer data needs it has been an extremely fast and reliable system. Several thousand users are able to connect many third party tools and run a large number of extracts while still experiencing great performance. For smaller systems in use with limited user accounts this system is less appropriate due to maintenance resources required.

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

• ETL processes. Once adjusted, Improvado never fails to streamline data from our advertisement platforms to the data warehouse.
• Variety of data sources. Improvado extracts data from over 200 sources, including both well-established platforms and the ones that are rapidly gaining momentum.
• Full-cycle support. Improvado provided us with a dedicated manager available 24/7. Any issues that arose during the product integration were settled in a matter of minutes.
• Flexibility and client-focused approach. After the integration, we adjusted our marketing campaign and needed new ad platforms to be integrated. The vendor allocated the development team ASAP to add new connectors to our existing network.
• Professional services package. The company doesn't provide dashboard views by default. However, we had no time to figure out how to do it ourselves, so we hired a team of Improvado's analysts that set everything up for us.

• ODI uses ELT architecture, which enhances the load performance and is very scalable.
• ODI is platform independent. It supports all platforms, hardware and operating systems.
• It comes with pre-built integration, allowing immediate data replication, transformation, and data governance while ensuring data quality.

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

• Improvado didn’t have all the integrations that we needed. However, they offered full coverage and quickly found ways to extract data from the sources we required.
• The user interface for BI tools may be confusing to inexperienced users. Personally, I didn't have any problems. However, some of the junior marketing specialists from my department needed more time to adapt to the UI. Otherwise, the interface is great.

• Training and ramping up to learn all the Oracle specific intricacies.
• Security concerns with administering some of the tools to end users.

Incentivized

• Scale of implementation
• IBM techsupport

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

We chose Improvado for the following reasons:

• Their data transformation framework cleans, normalizes and prepares data for loading into our data visualization tool;
• We connected our CRM to our analytics tool and as ad account;
• Extensive social media reports - the marketing team can view our ads, posts, comments right from the dashboard.
• Scheduled reports and immediate data sync options help us to get the reports with the most accurate data at the time we need them;
• Google Ads auto-connect new ad accounts.

Our marketing team evaluated Funnel.io and has opted for Improvado because of the following drawbacks:

• With Funnel we’d have to set up an extraction process for each campaign and account manually;
• The more accounts you need to connect or integrations to use, the more you’ll pay;
• Limited data storage options;
• Complicated account export. We had to filter accounts to export through the custom filter rules.

We are longtime ODI on-premise users. So, it was easy for us to migrate to the ODI cloud rather than implementing another solution.

Incentivized

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

• Increased ROI
• Improved cost of acquisition analysis
• Improved CPA, CPI, CPL report drawing process

• Ability to setup reliable disaster recovery.
• Upgrades and performance monitoring tools are readily available.

Incentivized