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Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs Microsoft MDS comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

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

Informatica Intelligent Dat...
Average Rating
7.8
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
182
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (3rd), Data Quality (1st), Business Process Management (BPM) (6th), 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)
Microsoft MDS
Average Rating
7.6
Reviews Sentiment
8.9
Number of Reviews
21
Ranking in other categories
Master Data Management (MDM) Software (2nd)
 

Mindshare comparison

While both are Data Integration and Access solutions, they serve different purposes. Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) is designed for Data Management Platforms (DMP) and holds a mindshare of 17.2%, up 14.4% compared to last year.
Microsoft MDS, on the other hand, focuses on Master Data Management (MDM) Software, holds 12.9% mindshare, down 14.8% since last year.
Data Management Platforms (DMP)
Master Data Management (MDM) Software
 

Featured Reviews

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.
Pierre Godard - PeerSpot reviewer
Adaptable for various industries and cost-effective
Microsoft MDS isn't getting strong support because Microsoft is focusing more on cloud solutions. Profisee initially made MDS, which Microsoft bought. Profisee now handles the cloud version. There are changes because MDS is the source for master data, and other tools like Dynamics 365 could replace it but aren't promoted for that purpose. I don't have any specific feature requests for MDS when it comes to the next release because Microsoft isn't actively supporting it. Any improvements would probably come from Profisee, the company that acquired MDS. Microsoft still owns MDS but isn't adding new features. Master data management is moving to the cloud or handled on-premises by Profisee MDS.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Seeing the data in the mapping itself is really nice."
"I have rated the stability a ten out of ten due to a high level of satisfaction."
"It comes with lot of features and is a one-stop-shop solution for integration, data modeling, and data governance. Everything can be built under one particular umbrella. If any issues come up, then there won't be any blame game saying that it could be an integration issue or an MDM hub issue because it's wholly owned by Informatica. That's the biggest advantage of Informatica MDM over that of any other tools that are available on the market."
"It has flexibility in extending the data model."
"Replication allows us to fully replicate all objects from Shop Floor Data Collection (SFDC) to in-house/on-premises database in one job."
"What I like best about Informatica MDM is its structured, table-based approach. Unlike Reltio, where data is only visible through the UI and cloud-based, the solution allows access to normalized tables. This means I can directly query and see data in each table. For instance, I can easily get all customer details from the customer table. However, for more complex queries, like seeing all customer interactions with the organization, some SQL knowledge is needed to join different tables and retrieve the details."
"It has all the advantages of the Cloud in that you can use it without worrying about infrastructure, upkeep, or upgrades."
"Informatica MDM has data quality, mastering the data's capability."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft MDS is its management."
"The ease of use is valuable."
"It's very easy to use."
"What I like about Microsoft, is that it has a huge database with many users."
"The tool is easy to use."
"The most valuable feature is the administration console."
"Unlike specialized tools, MDS is adaptable for various industries, making it a versatile choice for master data management."
"Technical support is very good."
 

Cons

"Their support should be improved. We have had some trouble with their support from time to time. Its scalability should also be improved. I would also like to have a bit more modern and friendly UI for the end-users. There should definitely be a simplified way to configure and set it up."
"It would be great if the cloud version could match the full range of capabilities available on-premise."
"Informatica MDM's UI is not intuitive enough."
"The setup is complex."
"Informatica MDM can improve the data catalog and data marketplace."
"Data integration should be improved."
"A general improvement in icons and the virtual interface would be good."
"There is room for improvement in the support. The response time could be faster."
"Stability can be fragile at times. If you are not attentive or make a mistake, it can cause problems."
"The only drawback is that it does not have the matching, merging, and all true MDM components. For these, you have to use another competent called Data Quality Services (DQS). You need to plug it in and use it along with MDS for true MDM. Both of these are integrated together, but you have to do them separately, whereas, in Profisee, there are a couple of screens where you can configure the matching process, create matching rules, and other things, and everything is in one product, which is not the case with MDS. In order to implement a true MDM, you need MDS, DQS, and SSIS. You have to use MDS to store your golden records, DQS to configure and standardize all your rules and matching percentages, and SSIS to load the data to DQS and MDS. At the same time, you also need Melissa Data to clean up your addresses to validate and standardize the addresses. That's the main component of true MDM. It would be good if they can create a true matching component inside MDS and merge MDS and DQS."
"Microsoft MDS' language should be simple so everyone can use it easily."
"The Microsoft license cost could be lower."
"The stability could be improved."
"It would be a better option to have an on-cloud version."
"Most of the Microsoft partners, especially digitally, are separate. Personnel are business people, and they do not have technical expertise, so you end up as a company spending a lot of money training your staff and your engineers."
"From my understanding, MS, as of 2021, will not maintain the product going forward."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Informatica MDM's pricing is not cheap but comparable to other vendors."
"I rate the product's price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is the cheapest and ten is the most expensive. The product is a bit expensive."
"It's offers value for money. They're more competitive with respect to pricing and offerings."
"The product is very expensive"
"Informatica Cloud Data Integration is famously known for its high price. The vendor targets large enterprises, and not medium or small companies. These large companies, and organizations, handle large amounts of data. If you go into any large bank, such as American or Canadian banks, these banks use this solution because it is more reliable, secure, and has more functionality."
"It's a costly solution"
"Its pricing model can be improved."
"It's a very expensive solution"
"Microsoft MDS is an expensive solution."
"I would like to see better pricing."
"Product licensing is very complicated. It would be helpful to have an online calculator to estimate the cost of a license."
"MDS is a part of the SQL Server enterprise license. I am not aware of any additional costs."
"The pricing of this solution is good."
"SAP is more expensive than Microsoft."
"With Microsoft, we buy everything though an agreement, so we purchase volume licensing every year."
"The solution does require a license and we have enterprise licenses."
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Answers from the Community

RT
Feb 7, 2022
Feb 7, 2022
Hi @Richard Tibbetts, There's no short answer to your question. Nearly all existing MDM solutions on the market offer a broad range of patterns to ingest master data from various sources and distribute cleanse and consolidated information, also to the Azure stack. Many vendors offer prebuilt connectors for the most common sources (databases, various file types, storages, business applications i...
2 out of 3 answers
InitZero - PeerSpot reviewer
Jan 14, 2022
Hi @Richard Tibbetts, There's no short answer to your question. Nearly all existing MDM solutions on the market offer a broad range of patterns to ingest master data from various sources and distribute cleanse and consolidated information, also to the Azure stack. Many vendors offer prebuilt connectors for the most common sources (databases, various file types, storages, business applications including MS Dynamics, Salesforce, etc.), but also support a generic way of ingesting/exposing data via Rest APIs, file drops, etc. MS MDS is an extension of the MS SQL server 2016. I don't know Microsoft plans to extend it, but I know that Profisee and CluedIn are very active in promoting their solutions as-built having Azure in mind and being a part of the stack. Informatica MDM has three types of offerings these days: on-prem, hosted MDM, and cloud-native option - they differ in the functionality and integration options. Obviously, there are many more MDM tools on the market particularly good in various data domains (products, customers/suppliers - so yours, multi-domain, etc). I think that you should start your MDM journey by answering which current challenges you try to solve or what new capabilities you need to enable to the organisation. Once these questions are answered and based on your organization's Enterprise Architecture principles, look for the best fitting tool. It may (or may not) be the one that fits the best into the Azure Reference Architecture. I hope this helped.
GM
Feb 4, 2022
I agree with @InitZero...  I would add that there's no future roadmap for MDS and they don't have an Azure solution for it.  Since it's a free product with an SQL license, don't expect Microsoft to invest in it.   Even though we are highly dependent upon it currently I'm starting to look towards the future where we need to find a replacement - hopefully, a PaaS solution. It would be great if Microsoft came out with something in Azure but I'm not hopeful at this point.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
17%
Computer Software Company
12%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
6%
Computer Software Company
14%
Financial Services Firm
12%
Manufacturing Company
9%
Healthcare Company
7%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
What do you like most about Microsoft MDS?
More generic related things can be included in the services.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft MDS?
Microsoft MDS is cost-effective because it comes free with SQL Server.
What needs improvement with Microsoft MDS?
If Microsoft MDS were part of Azure, it would be significantly more helpful. Additionally, integrating fuzzy duplication within MDS itself, rather than relying on SSIS, would streamline operations....
 

Also Known As

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
Microsoft Master Data Services, Microsoft MDM, Microsoft SQL Server Master Data Services, MS MDS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

The Travel Company, Carbonite
ETA a.s., Apeejay Surrendra Group, Blue Star Infotech, Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation, The Sydney Children's Hospitals Network, New Belgium Brewing
Find out what your peers are saying about Informatica, Palantir, Oracle and others in Data Management Platforms (DMP). Updated: January 2025.
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