What is our primary use case?
We are not using this product specifically as a data factory. We have taken Synapse Analytics as the entire component for the data warehousing solution. Azure Data Factory is one of the components of that, and we are using it for ETL.
How has it helped my organization?
Prior to this, we did not have a proper data warehousing solution. Instead, we had segregation between different tools like Oracle Data Warehouse, Exadata, and other products. Now, most of the tools that we have are from Microsoft, including Power BI, which has been rolled out throughout the organization. Synapse was the better choice for us to implement, as it has a lot of out-of-the-box connectors that we can utilize for data transformation and organization.
What is most valuable?
The best part of this product is the extraction, transformation, and load. In fact, we have found that the three of them work quite well. We are implementing the cloud-based system right now.
We see a lot of improvement with the most recent version of this solution. Some of the new features are very important to us.
What needs improvement?
The need to work more on developing out-of-the-box connectors for other products like Oracle, AWS, and others.
For how long have I used the solution?
We have been working with Azure Data Factory for approximately six months. We are still implementing and it is not live, yet, but we expect it to be in 2021.
What do I think about the stability of the solution?
I have found it to be quite stable. Here and there, there could be some issues and problems but overall, I'm okay with the product.
What do I think about the scalability of the solution?
Scalability is one of the points that we were looking for because we are hosting approximately two terabytes of data and we expect that it will grow at least five times over the next two years. This is one of the reasons that we adopted this solution.
In perhaps a year, we will increase our usage.
How are customer service and technical support?
The technical support from Microsoft is quite good. if you get good resources and they can provide you with free consulting, then it is quite good. However, when you purchase paid consulting and dedicated support, it is quite costly compared to the market.
How was the initial setup?
I don't think that the initial setup was very complex. We have quite an advanced IT infrastructure team and the Microsoft FastTrack team also helped us a lot during the programming of the development and setup.
What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?
I would not say that this product is overly expensive. It is competing with the other providers, and they have almost the same pricing model.
What other advice do I have?
In general, I would recommend this product. However, it depends on the target IT ecosystem. If they are utilizing a lot of Microsoft products like Power BI, Office, Project, SharePoint, and so forth, it's better to implement Data Factory because it will reduce a lot of effort spent to consume data from other sources.
At this point, I can only rate based on my pre-implementation experience, so I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.
Which deployment model are you using for this solution?
Private Cloud
If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?
Microsoft Azure
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.