SAP Replication Server vs. SolarWinds Task Factory

I asked questions about a warm standby and multicast replication. We ended up using bi-directional replication and a warm standby db. Having 3 or more live OLTP DB's where each was read-write was going to be difficult to manage for contention if the same table was being updated. We stuck with an easier solution to have only two OLTP's, and then used additional DB's as read-only DW's.

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

• guaranteed delivery
• high availability
• scalable
• low latency
• data transformation

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

• Data Reconciliation Functionality.

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

SAP support has been outstanding. They have quick response times and always meet their SLAs. Any time we have an issue that needs to be researched they are able to get back to us quickly with resolution.

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

Hands down Sybase has the best replication

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

• A positive is that it allow quick business decision making on the basis of real time data. Huge time saving for business.

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