Oracle Data Integrator - The real data integrator
November 21, 2016
Oracle Data Integrator - The real data integrator
Score 8 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User
Overall Satisfaction with Oracle Data Integrator
Oracle Data Integrator (ODI)is a powerful ETL tool. We use this across the organization to integrate data from various sources (mainly Peoplesoft) and load the processed data into Oracle Data Warehouse. The Data Warehouse loaded by ODI acts as a single source of truth for every department within the organization. All the department's raw data is pulled by ODI and processed before loading into Data Warehouse. Though this is a backend tool, which many front end users are not aware of its existence, it does a great job integrating data from different sources.
- Oracle Data Integrator nearly addresses every data issue that one can expect. Oracle Data Integrator is tightly integrated to the Oracle Suite of products. This is one of the major strengths of Oracle Data Integrator. Oracle Data Integrator is part of the Oracle Business Intelligence Applications Suite - which is highly used by various industries. This tool replaced Informatica ETL in Oracle Business Intelligence Applications Suite.
- Oracle Data Integrator comes with many pre-written data packages. If one has to load data from Excel to Oracle Database, there is a package that is ready available for them - cutting down lot of effort on writing the code. Similarly, there are packages for Oracle to SQL, SQL to Oracle and all other possible combinations. Developers love this feature.
- Oracle Data Integrator relies highly on the database for processing. This is actually an ELT tool rather than an ETL tool. It first loads all the data into target instance and then transforms it at the expense of database resources. This light footprint makes this tool very special.
- The other major advantage of Oracle Data Integrator, like any other Oracle products, is a readily available developer pool. As all Oracle products are free to download for demo environments, many organizations prefer to play around with a product before purchasing it. Also, Oracle support and community is a big advantage compared to other vendors.
- The Java framework does not stand up to the mark. It crashes frequently. There is a long [list] of improvements required in terms of client tools framework.
- Though Oracle Data Integrator lets people login from a web browser to monitor different activities, it crashes and performs very poorly when logged in out of network. Even Oracle Data Integrator client tools don't perform well on a remote desktop. Increasing Java buffer is one of the workarounds, that might work. So, a better client tools and interface is a big advantage.
- Navigation is another pain area. It is very difficult to find out the precise error, in case of a failure, in Oracle Data Integrator. In Informatica, it is a cake walk to pull out a session log that shows up the exact reason for failure. Although Oracle Data Integrator is tightly integrated to database, it is very poor in providing the exact error at high level. One has to dig through to get it.
- Oracle Data Integrator has a positive impact on Return on Investment. The # 1 reason behind this is - Oracle Data Integrator replaces the need of other ETL tools used by individual departments with in our organization. This is a cost-effective solution with more benefits and a centralized solution.
- Oracle Data Integrator requires less hardware resources compared to other comparable ETL tools. As this uses the processing power of source / target database, this requires less investment. Databases in any big organizations are highly powered and under-utilized at times.
- As Oracle Data Integrator supports almost all the Operating Systems, this software doesn't require a special Operating System and maintenance team. This software can fit into the existing infrastructure, in most cases.
- Informatica, Pentaho and Oracle Warehouse Builder
Oracle's own ETL tool was Oracle Warehouse Builder, initially. When Oracle built the Oracle Business Intelligence Applications Suite, Oracle is in need of a strong ETL. As Oracle Warehouse Builder is not a strong ETL that customers prefer and as already Informatica captured most of the ETL market, Oracle choose Informatica as it's ETL tool for Oracle Business Intelligence Applications Suite. In parallel, Oracle started developing it's own ETL tool which can replace Informatica in their OBIA Suite. The outcome is Oracle Data Integrator. Oracle Data Integrator is built keeping customers in mind and what customers are trying to achieve over the last decade. Though, OBIA 11g customers are now left with only one choice of ETL Tool - ODI, they love it for it's simplicity and light foot print. Pentaho on the other hand is not comparable to either ODI or Informatica. I mentioned it as I used it for a short period.