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IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive SummaryUpdated on Dec 19, 2024

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM Cloud Pak for Data
Ranking in Data Integration
18th
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.6
Number of Reviews
12
Ranking in other categories
Data Virtualization (3rd)
Informatica Intelligent Dat...
Ranking in Data Integration
3rd
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
181
Ranking in other categories
Data Quality (1st), Business Process Management (BPM) (7th), Business-to-Business Middleware (3rd), API Management (7th), Cloud Data Integration (3rd), Data Governance (2nd), Test Data Management (3rd), Cloud Master Data Management (MDM) Solutions (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (1st), Data Masking (2nd), Metadata Management (1st), Test Data Management Services (2nd), Product Information Management (PIM) (1st), Data Observability (2nd)
 

Featured Reviews

Murali B - PeerSpot reviewer
Provides IBM Watson Catalog and data pipelines, but catalog searching needs to be improved
If people are with the existing stuff, I would definitely suggest they go with IBM Cloud Pak for Data. I usually recommend the solution for the financial sector, where I worked for about ten years. I worked with IBM for almost eight years. Unless they want to migrate to a new product completely, I recommend IBM Cloud Pak for Data to explore current business. It is easy to integrate the tool with other solutions. Except for metadata queries, metadata validations, and metadata integrations, I don't see any issues with the solution. I would recommend the solution to other users if it supports their existing infrastructure. Some people don't want to put their data in the cloud because they are concerned about how the data is secured with encryption and decryption. For such cases, we have listed out all the pros and cons of the solution to suggest them to users. Overall, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.
Raj Sethupathi - PeerSpot reviewer
Offers profiling and address standardization but can be complicated
Informatica Data Quality has its data warehouse, primarily using Oracle and some SQL databases. You need a database to host the data. The cleansed version of the data is stored in the data warehouse. It integrates with PowerCenter and other Informatica tools. The integration details can be complex, but a regional setup is involved in this process. Profiling smaller datasets, such as 10,000-50,000 records, worked fine. However, unexpected issues could arise with larger datasets, such as thousands of records or more, especially with tables containing many columns. Handling tables with fifty or more columns can be challenging, even in Excel. A mismatch in data types could cause the entire system to crash. Continual enhancements are being made to address these issues, which can be unique to specific industries like finance and healthcare.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"DataStage allows me to connect to different data sources."
"It is a scalable solution, and we have had no issues with its scalability in our company. I rate the solution's scalability a nine out of ten."
"One of Cloud Pak's best features is the Watson Knowledge Catalog, which helps you implement data governance."
"Cloud Pak's most valuable features are IBM MQ, IBM App Connect, IBM API Connect, and ISPF."
"The most valuable features of IBM Cloud Pak for Data are the Watson Studio, where we can initiate more groups and write code. Additionally, Watson Machine Learning is available with many other services, such as APIs which you can plug the machine learning models."
"Scalability-wise, I rate the solution a nine or ten out of ten."
"IBM Watson Catalog and data pipelines are the most valuable features of the solution."
"The most valuable features are data virtualization and reporting."
"The solution offers good data governance."
"It's good for tool management, maintaining the golden record of customer status."
"The scalability is very high."
"We can see all our information on a single screen."
"The features that I have found most valuable are, first of all, that it comes as part of this whole bundle of Informatica tools. So if you've been implementing Informatica MDM across a business, you'd often find it comes with it. It's been thrown in as a sweetener. The adoption of it is often the challenge because as part of your MDM project, governance is seen as something beyond the MDM and is often restrictive. So this tool actually, for the first time, when you talk to data governance teams, gives a holistic view of what a data governance team can do with this tool."
"MDM is very stable - it can handle millions of hits daily and still run 24/7."
"It has improved our organization because it has made our data more reliable. Data is the most important asset these days, and in order to trust your data, you need these tools to make sure that your data is clean and reliable."
"You can extract and transfer your data as you wish it to be consumed later."
 

Cons

"There is a solution that is part of IBM Cloud Pak for Data called Watson OpenScale. It is used to monitor the deployed models for the quality and fairness of the results. This is one area that needs a lot of improvement."
"The tool depends on the control plane, an OpenShift container platform utilized as an orchestration layer...So, we have communicated this issue to IBM and asked if it is feasible to adapt the solution to work on a Kubernetes platform that we support."
"Cloud Pak would be improved with integration with cloud service providers like Cloudera."
"The interface could improve because sometimes it becomes slow. Sometimes there is a delay between clicks when using the software, which can make the development process slow. It can take a few seconds to complete one action, and then a few more seconds to do the next one."
"The solution's user experience is an area that has room for improvement."
"The product is trying to be more maturity in terms of connectors. That, I believe, is an area where Cloud Pak can improve."
"The solution could have more connectors."
"The solution's catalog searching or map search needs to be improved."
"The product is not too user-friendly to do the configurations."
"Permissions, scalability, and connection with other informatic tools are the main areas that need development. Integration with other tools, such as IDQ, is challenging. The management of data discovery is highly challenging because many data points have identical definitions."
"Its features for partitioning and optimization could be better."
"The UI is terrible and not user-friendly."
"Connectivity could be improved, it can be a little slow."
"Metadata querying is right now not there in Informatica Cloud Data Integration."
"The cost of Informatica MDM is expensive and has room for improvement."
"The biggest pain point for us is the documentation. Typically, you have to go through knowledge forums and knowledge groups to find out about the syntax issues for interfacing with new products. Typically, you've got to deal with someone who has been through the pain before. Their documents are not really up to date with current innovations happening in the industry. As big as they are, you can't really expect it, but that's our pain point."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I don't have the exact licensing cost for IBM Cloud Pak for Data, as my company is still finalizing requirements, including monthly, yearly, and three-year licensing fees. Still, on a scale of one to five, I'd rate it a three because, compared to other vendors, it's more complicated."
"The solution is expensive."
"For the licensing of the solution, there is a yearly payment that needs to be made. Also, since it is expensive, cost-wise, I rate the solution an eight or nine out of ten."
"IBM Cloud Pak for Data is expensive. If we include the training time and the machine learning, it's expensive. The cost of the execution is more reasonable."
"It's quite expensive."
"I think that this product is too expensive for smaller companies."
"Cloud Pak's cost is a little high."
"The solution's pricing is competitive with that of other vendors."
"The price is comparable."
"Its pricing model can be improved."
"We saw an ROI. We have been able to get data from various sources and consolidate it into a data lake, which is helping us in data analytics."
"Comparatively, their prices are a little bit too high."
"We have licenses, and we are provided with certain particular services in the solution."
"Informatica MDM recently changed its pricing model. It's usage-based but I don't have much insight into the current pricing."
"The price is neither too high nor too low."
"The licensing price of the product depends on the organization's requirements."
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Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
28%
Computer Software Company
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
7%
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM Cloud Pak for Data?
DataStage allows me to connect to different data sources.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for IBM Cloud Pak for Data?
The solution's pricing is competitive with that of other vendors. The pricing also depends on the number of users.
What needs improvement with IBM Cloud Pak for Data?
Previously, we used to extract the information in the DSX and the XML formats. IBM Cloud Pak for Data exports information mostly on the ISX, which is an encrypted format. The only challenge with th...
How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica Cloud Data Integration?
Azure Data Factory is a solid product offering many transformation functions; It has pre-load and post-load transformations, allowing users to apply transformations either in code by using Power Q...
Which Informatica product would you choose - PowerCenter or Cloud Data Integration?
Complex transformations can easily be achieved using PowerCenter, which has all the features and tools to establish a real data governance strategy. Additionally, PowerCenter is able to manage huge...
What are the biggest benefits of using Informatica Cloud Data Integration?
When it comes to cloud data integration, this solution can provide you with multiple benefits, including: Overhead reduction by integrating data on any cloud in various ways Effective integration ...
 

Also Known As

Cloud Pak for Data
ActiveVOS, Active Endpoints, BPM, Address Verification, Persistent Data Masking, Cloud Test Data Management, PIM, , Enterprise Data Catalog, Data Integration Hub, Cloud Data Integration, Data Quality, Cloud API and App Integration
 

Learn More

 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

Qatar Development Bank, GuideWell, Skanderborg Music Festival
The Travel Company, Carbonite
Find out what your peers are saying about IBM Cloud Pak for Data vs. Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) and other solutions. Updated: January 2025.
831,265 professionals have used our research since 2012.