Informatica PowerCenter vs. SAP Data Services

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Informatica PowerCenter
Score 7.8 out of 10
N/A
Informatica PowerCenter is a metadata driven data integration technology designed to form the foundation for data integration initiatives, including analytics and data warehousing, application migration, or consolidation and data governance.N/A
SAP Data Services
Score 8.7 out of 10
N/A
SAP Data Services is an offering from SAP to improve data quality.N/A
Pricing
Informatica PowerCenterSAP Data Services
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
No answers on this topic
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Informatica PowerCenterSAP Data Services
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Informatica PowerCenterSAP Data Services
Considered Both Products
Informatica PowerCenter
Chose Informatica PowerCenter
PowerCenter is simply so robust and refined that most other apps cannot do as much as it can. Even Informatica’s own Cloud version is so anemic as to not even compare against it. While from that perspective it feels bloated with too much to navigate through, many of those …
SAP Data Services
Chose SAP Data Services
Sap data services has been the easiest tool to pick up and use productively. The built in repository works very well.
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
Informatica PowerCenterSAP Data Services
Data Source Connection
Comparison of Data Source Connection features of Product A and Product B
Informatica PowerCenter
8.5
18 Ratings
3% above category average
SAP Data Services
-
Ratings
Connect to traditional data sources9.018 Ratings00 Ratings
Connecto to Big Data and NoSQL8.014 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Transformations
Comparison of Data Transformations features of Product A and Product B
Informatica PowerCenter
7.5
18 Ratings
11% below category average
SAP Data Services
-
Ratings
Simple transformations8.018 Ratings00 Ratings
Complex transformations7.018 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Modeling
Comparison of Data Modeling features of Product A and Product B
Informatica PowerCenter
8.2
18 Ratings
0% above category average
SAP Data Services
-
Ratings
Data model creation9.015 Ratings00 Ratings
Metadata management8.016 Ratings00 Ratings
Business rules and workflow9.018 Ratings00 Ratings
Collaboration6.116 Ratings00 Ratings
Testing and debugging9.017 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Governance
Comparison of Data Governance features of Product A and Product B
Informatica PowerCenter
9.0
15 Ratings
9% above category average
SAP Data Services
-
Ratings
Integration with data quality tools9.015 Ratings00 Ratings
Integration with MDM tools9.013 Ratings00 Ratings
Data Quality
Comparison of Data Quality features of Product A and Product B
Informatica PowerCenter
-
Ratings
SAP Data Services
6.1
9 Ratings
37% below category average
Data source connectivity00 Ratings5.29 Ratings
Data profiling00 Ratings6.09 Ratings
Master data management (MDM) integration00 Ratings7.07 Ratings
Data element standardization00 Ratings7.09 Ratings
Match and merge00 Ratings5.19 Ratings
Address verification00 Ratings6.38 Ratings
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Informatica PowerCenterSAP Data Services
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Skyvia
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Score 8.1 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.2 out of 10
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
Score 8.2 out of 10
Enterprises
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
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Score 8.2 out of 10
IBM InfoSphere Information Server
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Score 8.2 out of 10
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User Ratings
Informatica PowerCenterSAP Data Services
Likelihood to Recommend
8.0
(21 ratings)
6.1
(9 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(4 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(3 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Performance
9.4
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
9.0
(2 ratings)
8.7
(4 ratings)
User Testimonials
Informatica PowerCenterSAP Data Services
Likelihood to Recommend
Informatica
1.- Scenaries with poor sources of data is not recomended (Very bad ROI). The solution is for medium-big enterprises with a lot of sources of data and users. 2.- Bank and finance enviroment to integrate differente data form trading, Regulatory reports, decisions makers, fraud and financial crimes because in this kind of scenary the quality of data is the base of the business. 3.- Departments of development and test of applications in enterprises because you can design enviroments, out of the production systems, to development and test the new API's or updateds made.
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SAP
It's definitely one of the leading ETL tools, and it's the best ETL tool to use with SAP integration. If you use SAP HANA, then you should think about Data Services as your primary ETL tool.
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Pros
Informatica
  • Informatica Powercenter is an innovative software that works with ETL-type data integration. Connectivity to almost all the database systems.
  • Great documentation and customer support.
  • It has a various solution to address data quality issues. data masking, data virtualization. It has various supporting tools or MDM, IDQ, Analyst, BigData which can be used to analyze data and correct it.
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SAP
  • Integration with SAP ERP/ECC works really well.
  • A lot of flexibility in data creation, with different types of communication capabilities like BAPIs, IDocs, and Batch input.
  • Reliable and consistent results and easily enforceable data templates.
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Cons
Informatica
  • There are too many ways to perform the same or similar functions which in turn makes it challenging to trace what a workflow is doing and at which point (ex. sessions can be designed as static or re-usable and the override can occur at the session or workflow, or both which can be counter productive and confusing when troubleshooting).
  • The power in structured design is a double edged sword. Simple tasks for a POC can become cumbersome. Ex. if you want to move some data to test a process, you first have to create your sources by importing them which means an ODBC connection or similar will need to be configured, you in turn have to develop your targets and all of the essential building blocks before being able to begin actual development. While I am on sources and targets, I think of a table definition as just that and find it counter intuitive to have to design a table as both a source and target and manage them as different objects. It would be more intuitive to have a table definition and its source/target properties defined by where you drag and drop it in the mapping.
  • There are no checkpoints or data viewer type functions without designing an entire mapping and workflow. If you would like to simply run a job up to a point and check the throughput, an entire mapping needs to be completed and you would workaround this by creating a flat file target.
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SAP
  • Debugging is not very easy. When one wants to see the flow of data from one Query to another, the process is not very smooth and efficient.
  • A lot of functions do not behave the way they should. I have faced problems with the count() function.
  • I have faced problems while loading Excel files. The same set of options will work in one case but not in the other.
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Likelihood to Renew
Informatica
Our team enjoys using Informatica and feels that it is one of the best ETL tools on the market.
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SAP
No answers on this topic
Usability
Informatica
Positives; - Multi User Development Environment - Speed of transformation - Seamless integration between other Informatica products. Negatives; - There should be less windows to maintain developers' focus while using. You probably need 2 big monitors when you start development with Informatica Power Center. - Oracle Analytical functions should be natively used. - E-LT support as well as ETL support.
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SAP
No answers on this topic
Performance
Informatica
PowerCenter is robust and fast, and it does a great job meeting all the needs, not just the most commercially vocal needs. In the hands of an expert power user, you can accomplish almost anything with your data. It is not for new users or intermittent users-- for that the Cloud version is a better fit. Be prepared for costly connectors (priced differently for each source or destination you are working with), and just be planful of your projects so you are not paying for connectors you no longer need or want
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SAP
No answers on this topic
Support Rating
Informatica
Informatica power center is a leader of the pack of ETL tools and has some great abilities that make it stand out from other ETL tools. It has been a great partner to its clients over a long time so it's definitely dependable. With all the great things about Informatica, it has a bit of tech burden that should be addressed to make it more nimble, reduce the learning curve for new developers, provide better connectivity with visualization tools.
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SAP
As other SAP products, there is excellent support by SAP on this tool. You can access the SAP Help portal in order to give support either from the huge community or directly from SAP.
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Alternatives Considered
Informatica
While Talend offers a much more comfortable interface to work with, Informatica's forte is performance. And on that front, Informatica Enterprise Data Integration certainly leaves Talend in the dust. For a more back-end-centric use case, Informatica is certainly the ETL tool of choice. On the other hand, if business users would be using the tool, then Talend would be the preferred tool.
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SAP
You cannot afford to run your business on questionable data. With SAP® Data Services software, you can access, transform, and connect data to fuel your critical business processes. Together, these enterprise-class solutions enable data integration and data quality, providing the right level of insight across your business so you can make better decisions and operate more effectively.SAP Data Services was previously known as SAP BusinessObjects Data Services, SAP BusinessObjects Data Integrator, BusinessObjects Data Integrator.
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Return on Investment
Informatica
  • The data pipeline automation capability of Informatica means that few resources are needed to pre-process the data that ultimately resides in a Data Warehouse. Once a workflow is implemented, manual intervention is not needed.
  • PowerCenter did require more resources and time for installation and configuration than was expected/planned for.
  • The lack of or minimal support of unstructured data means that newer sources of dynamic/changing data cannot be easily processed/transformed through PowerCenter workflows.
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SAP
  • Very positive impact in jobs maintenance since support auto-documentation.
  • Great impact on learning curve.
  • Great results in our Data Quality Projects.
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