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The need for data integration emerges from complex data center environments where multiple different systems are creating large volumes of data. This data must be understood in aggregate, rather than in isolation. Data integration is nothing more than a technique and technology for providing a unified and consistent view of enterprise-wide data.
Ability to process data from a wide variety of sources such as mainframes, enterprise applications, spreadsheets, proprietary databases, etc.
Ability to process unstructured data from social media, email, web pages, etc.
Syntactic and semantic checks to make sure data conforms to business rules and policies
Deduplication and removal of incorrectly or improperly formatted data
Support for metadata
There are several different approaches to achieving this goal which are quite different to each other and essentially solve slightly different problems: The main technologies for data integration are Extract, Transform Load (ETL), Enterprise Application Integration (EAI), and Enterprise Information Integration (EII), or data virtualization as it is more often called today.
Products listed in this category belong to the ETL data integration approach. Unlike the other listed approaches, ETL is designed for data migration and integration of large volumes of data to provide a basis for decision-making.
ETL is a process whereby large volumes of required data are extracted from various databases and converted into a common format. The data is then cleaned, and loaded into the specialized reporting database called a data warehouse. It is then available for standard reporting purposes.
The data used in ETL can come from any source including flat files, Excel data, application data like CRM or ERP data, or mainframe application data. Perhaps the most difficult part of the process is the “Transform” component. Here, not only must the data be cleansed and any duplicates removed, but the software also has to resolve data consistency issues. It applies rules to consistently convert data to the appropriate form for the data warehouse or repository.
Once the data has been loaded into a data warehouse it is available for querying by business intelligence front-end processes that can pull consolidated data into reports and dashboards.
One shortcoming of the data warehouse approach is that the data is not always current. Data warehouses pull data from databases periodically in batches, not in real time. If the data in the source database has changed, this might not be reflected in the data in the warehouse. Various strategies can be employed to achieve “real-time ETL”, although some of them place a significant load on the database. This can have performance repercussions.
The simplest thing to do is simply increase the frequency of batch updates to near real-time processing. But there are other solutions including continuously feeding the database using real-time data transport technologies, the use of staging tables, or a real-time data cache.
Enterprise-level data integration tools can be very expensive with some products costing upwards of $10,000 per user per year. On top of that, you may need to pay for professional services to get up and running. SMB solutions are significantly cheaper than this.
TIBCO Cloud™ Integration is an enterprise iPaaS platform. It offers a drag-and-drop and API- led design approach for user-friendliness.
Matillion is data transformation for cloud data warehouses. According to the vendor, only Matillion is purpose-built for Amazon Redshift, Snowflake, and Google BigQuery enabling businesses to achieve new levels of simplicity, speed, scale, and savings. Quickly develop custom Transformation jobs by …
According to the vendor, Task Factory offers high-performance components and tasks for SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) that save you time and money by accelerating ETL processes and eliminating many tedious SSIS programming tasks. With more than 70 components, Task Factory helps you connect t…
Oracle GoldenGate is database management software for data integration, and availability support for heterogeneous databases.
Microsoft's SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) is a data integration solution.
Dell Boomi is a cloud-based, on-premise, or hybrid integration platform. It offers a low-code/no-code interface with the capacity for API and EDI connections for integrating with external organizations and systems, as well as compliance with data protection regulations.
Centerprise Data Integrator is an integration platform that includes tools for data integration, data transformation, data quality, and data profiling.
Oracle Data Integrator is an ELT data integrator designed with interoperability other Oracle programs. The program focuses on a high-performance capacity to support Big Data use within Oracle.
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.
Dataloader.io delivers a cloud based solution to import and export information from Salesforce.
Talend Open Studio is a data integration solution.
Cisco Data Virtualization, formerly Composite (acquired July 2013) is, as the name might suggest, a data or datacenter virtualization platform.
The Talend Integration Suite, from Talend, is a set of tools for data integration.
IBM InfoSphere is an enterprise grade master data management solution used by over 700 customers. It competes with Oracle's Siebel UCM product and Informatica.
SAS/Access is a data integration solution, from SAS.
Oracle Warehouse Builder is a data integration solution, from Oracle.
SAP NetWeaver Process Integration is an application integration solution.
Skyvia is a cloud platform for no-coding data integration (both ELT and ETL), automating workflows, cloud to cloud backup, data management with SQL, CSV import/export, creating OData services, etc. The vendor says it supports all major cloud apps and databases, and requires no software except a web …
SAP's Sybase Replication Server is database development and management software.
IBM InfoSphere DataStage is an ETL platform for integrating data across enterprise systems, available on-premise or on cloud.
VertifyData is a cloud-based integration platform with core integration capacities, including a drag-and-drop interface and real-time synchronization. It also offers over 80 prebuilt connectors and templates, plus customizable integrations for scaling businesses.
Xactly Connect is a data integration and open API platform that allows organizations to create and automate data integration processes for commissions processing within Xactly Incent.
SAP Data Hub enables data integration and orchestration of data flows.
COZYROC SSIS+ is a suite of 200+ advanced components for developing ETL solutions with Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services. The vendor states that COZYROC is an easy-to-use, code-free library of tasks, components and reusable scripts that can significantly cut development time and improve the …
Informatica MDM is an enterprise master data management solution that competes directly with IBM's InfoSphere and Oracle's Siebel UCM product. The product has about 200 licensed users. Informatica MDM is a multidomain solution with flexibility to support any master data domain and relationship—wheth…
There are plenty of options out there, but here's our shortlist of the best Data Integration Tools. These products won a Top Rated award for having excellent customer satisfaction ratings. The list is based purely on reviews; there is no paid placement, and analyst opinions do not influence the rankings. To qualify, a product must have 10 or more recent reviews and a trScore of 7.5 or higher, indicating above-average satisfaction for business technology. The products with the highest trScores appear first on the list. Read more about the Top Rated criteria.