Matillion: Fast ELT with a whole lot more
Overall Satisfaction with Matillion
We use Matillion to load millions of rows of data each and every day. We got our warehouse up and running using Matillion in just a few months. We use it for all our reporting and have built out our commissions processes using this tool. We are able to connect data from multiple sources into one coherent location that makes our reporting so much easier.
Pros
- Matillion is an ELT tool rather than an ETL tool. This means that it's using the database engine to manipulate data. Much faster than a traditional ETL tool where speed is lost in the movement of data.
- Building Transformation Jobs. The flow-chart style developer interface makes it simple and easy to build jobs. But underlying that is the ability to create complex SQL and/or Python components which make just about anything you can think of possible.
- AWS integration. The integration with AWS allows a multitude of possibilities such as automatically kicking off jobs when a file is loaded in S3 or sending a notification of job success or failure via SNS.
Cons
- Matillion has some limited capabilities when interacting with other databases outside of Redshift and RDS. Getting data from other databases is pretty easy. Putting data back into databases other than Redshift and RDS is more limited. That said, it's specifically built to load Redshift and that it does well.
- There are times when I get disconnected from the server. This may happen once or twice a day. Nothing is lost and it's a simple matter of logging back in. It's not my internet either as my coworkers in different areas of the country experience the same thing. I have seen some improvement in some of the later releases.
- I was able to build a complete commissions processing system for over 3500 employees using Matillion in just over a month. This included gathering data from 5 different sources, combining them together appropriately and building in the business rules. I was awarded one of the top awards our company gives for this project.
- Our big three Business Intelligence tools: Matillion, Redshift and DOMO allow us to give our employees the right data at the right time. Our productivity has increased as 75%+ of our employees look at their data every day they work.
Matillion is VERY easy to set up. I configured an instance of Matillion for a client of mine in about 10 minutes. I had a working automated load combining multiple data s in about an hour. Once configured, it's simple to add addition data sources and additional environments. I love how easy it is to load a csv file from S3 into Redshift.
We looked at several different options including Talend, SSIS, and a homegrown Python application. One of the biggest issues we were trying to address is the ability to schedule, monitor and have total visibility of what was going on. After review, Matillion came out as the clear winner. It wasn't the cheapest but it did what we needed it to do.
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