SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) vs. Tableau Prep vs. Vertify

As I mentioned earlier SQL Server Integration Services is suitable if you want to manage data from different applications. It really helps in fetching the data and generating reports. Its automation make it very easy and time efficient. It works well with large database as well. But it doesn't work well with real time data, it will take some time to gather the real time data. I would not recommend using it in a real time/fast-paced environment.

Incentivized

If your data sets are coming in without much stewardship then Tableau Prep can help to clean the data before you start trying to create visualizations for your end users. You will save a lot of time this way - rather than seeing problems once you are creating dashboards. If you don't have large data sets or your data is relatively simple, then Tableau Prep may not be needed.

Incentivized

I would recommend it, as VertifyData exactly fit our use case. I can't speak for all use cases and all connectors - naturally - but the ones we are using and have explored so far, work perfectly well. Also, being a person myself that is not fluent in SQL or JSON or API language in general, I was still able to create all workflows our company needed myself. Which I consider a huge benefit.

• Standard ETL use cases for daily loads
• Loading incoming data from Vendors which is placed on FTP and adding them to the SQL Warehouse
• Creating outgoing data files and writing them to Vendor FTPs
• Easy Active Directory integration for seamless connections to SQL Server
• CI/CD by hosting the code on visualstudio.com

Incentivized

• Display the raw data coming in from the data warehouse
• Point out situations that might be erroneous
• Show the distribution of raw data figures

Incentivized

• Communication.
• Follow up.
• They're constantly trying to improve.

• Connection managers for online data sources can be tricky to configure.
• Performance tuning is an art form and trialing different data flow task options can be cumbersome. SSIS can do a better job of providing performance data including historical for monitoring.
• Mapping destination using OLE DB command is difficult as destination columns are unnamed.
• Excel or flat file connections are limited by version and type.

Incentivized

• Use of Macros within Workflow (and more types of automation)
• Join Editor also giving a SQL Update Query
• More types of visuals

Incentivized

• Automated error trouble-shooting is not always clear/helpful
• Clearly distinguishing internal errors vs. external errors
• Perhaps a blog where users can interact with questions + solutions

Some features should be revised or improved, some tools (using it with Visual Studio) of the toolbox should be less schematic and somewhat more flexible. Using for example, the CSV data import is still very old-fashioned and if the data format changes it requires a bit of manual labor to accept the new data structure

Incentivized

It is a valuable tool for generating and cleaning files for multiple purposes.

Incentivized

SSIS is a great tool for most ETL needs. It has the 90% (or more) use cases covered and even in many of the use cases where it is not ideal SSIS can be extended via a .NET language to do the job well in a supportable way for almost any performance workload.

Incentivized

It works well and is user friendly for the basics but needs more options for bring in data (using SQL queries for example) and export format options.

Incentivized

Creating a mapping between source and target while also using lookups and transformations is not trivial. And VertifyData solved this reasonably well, at least all users in my organization understood it pretty quickly.

SQL Server Integration Services performance is dependent directly upon the resources provided to the system. In our environment, we allocated 6 nodes of 4 CPUs, 64GB each, running in parallel. Unfortunately, we had to ramp-up to such a robust environment to get the performance to where we needed it. Most of the reports are completed in a reasonable timeframe. However, in the case of slow running reports, it is often difficult if not impossible to cancel the report without killing the report instance or stopping the service.

Incentivized

It is not the easiest user interface to read/understand. However, once you understand how it works, then using it is not that bad. It's hard to remember what feature is listed under what tab (Manage vs. Define). A suggestion would be to get all call to actions on the same page

The support, when necessary, is excellent. But beyond that, it is very rarely necessary because the user community is so large, vibrant and knowledgable, a simple Google query or forum question can answer almost everything you want to know. You can also get prewritten script tasks with a variety of functionality that saves a lot of time.

Incentivized

I have not really had to reach out for any kind of customer support for Tableau Prep, so I can't really say. However, the support that Tableau has given for their other products has been great, so I would assume it would be the same here. They are also constantly adding new features and providing software updates, and that is always a plus.

Incentivized

The implementation may be different in each case, it is important to properly analyze all the existing infrastructure to understand the kind of work needed, the type of software used and the compatibility between these, the features that you want to exploit, to understand what is possible and which ones require integration with third-party tools

Incentivized

Live connections to cloud services (Google Sheets for example) and cloud hosted databases (cloud hosted SIS for example) for scheduled flows are not supported

Incentivized

I think SQL Server Integration Services is better suited for on-premises data movement and ADF is more suited for the cloud. Though ADF has more connectors, SQL Server Integration Services is more robust and has better functionality just because it has been around much longer

Incentivized

Before Prep, we had to do all the data joining and connecting in a Tableau Workbook. Not only did this cause workbooks connected with live data to run frustratingly slowly, a new connection and set-up had to be established every time a new workbook as created, even if you were working with the same data. The extracts produced by Prep allow several workbooks to be working from the same data set-up without any additional work, saving time and stress.

Incentivized

Vertify offered more flexibility and was presented as a simple solution. In reality, it is more complex that we envisioned and we have never fully utilized our tools due to the lack of ability to configure things properly.

Incentivized

• Without this, we would have to manually update a spreadsheet of our SQL Server inventory
• We would also have poor alerting; if an instance was down we wouldn't know until it was reported by a user
• We only have one other person who uses SQL Server Integration Services , he's the expert. It would fall to me without him and I would not enjoy being responsible for it.

Incentivized

• Quicker data sets for online reports
• More efficient data cleaning Ad Hoc reports
• Costly if using data management to schedule data pull and cleaning (priced per viewer accounts not creator accounts)

Incentivized

• Independently, teams are able to carry out their process with less communication and at a higher level of accuracy.
• VertifyData is actively taking into consideration, consulting, and supporting our plans to build out the business