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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
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
181
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (3rd), 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)
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 16.5%, up 14.1% compared to last year.
Microsoft MDS, on the other hand, focuses on Master Data Management (MDM) Software, holds 13.2% mindshare, down 14.6% 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
Easy to use with a helpful Excel plugin and integration of various data sources
The tool is very comprehensive; it has a lot of features and yet is easy to use. It is multi-domain which means that no matter what industry you are in, you can use the tool to create master data or reference data. One of the cool features of MDS is the fact that you can reference entities in different models in the MDS DB. MDS uses the model concept to encapsulate different domains in the MDS DB. From my understanding, MS, as of 2021, will not maintain the product going forward. That said, the original creator of the product is doing an excellent job building a new service on top of MDS called Profisee MDM.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Address Doctor gives an accurate combination of information provided with a level of returned threshold value."
"Whether we need data cleansing or data mastering, we get it all in one platform."
"The most valuable feature of Informatica MDM is hierarchy management. It's not something that's typically available and effective within ERPs."
"Informatica Data Quality is a product that is worth the money."
"We are able to set rules, establish a data quality management platform, and monitor the quality."
"The valuable feature is metadata management. If you want to trace sensitive data, you can auto-classify them. You can search for sensitive information through EDC. Using Discovery, you can identify if there is any type of data set."
"I give the stability a ten out of ten."
"The features for data quality, data cataloging, and UI are excellent."
"One of the main features I have found useful is the integration with Azure active directory."
"Technical support is very good."
"The most valuable feature is the administration console."
"What I like about Microsoft, is that it has a huge database with many users."
"Enables non-technical people to directly interact with the BI system."
"Compared to other databases, it is easier to manage and administer."
"It's very easy to use."
"More generic related things can be included in the services."
 

Cons

"The product is not too user-friendly to do the configurations."
"I would like to see support for more data sources."
"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."
"The biggest challenge I see is the IDE's for the cloud and automization are different."
"We currently have issues with real-time integration."
"The product could be improved in the area of architecture and technology. All the parts are old."
"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."
"Interoperability is one area where EDC has room for improvement. It was challenging when the faculty took over the data world and had specific vendors they wanted to use, and some were not particularly open platforms."
"There are occasions when the solution maintains SD and we get duplications of MDS."
"More generic related things can be included in the services."
"The solution could be better integrated into Microsoft's other products."
"Microsoft MDS' language should be simple so everyone can use it easily."
"The program's navigation tools could be improved."
"The stability could be improved."
"The Microsoft license cost could be lower."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"The platform has a premium cost. I rate the pricing as seven out of ten."
"The solution is very expensive."
"It's offers value for money. They're more competitive with respect to pricing and offerings."
"Informatica Axon is expensive."
"My understanding is that Informatica is quite expensive compare to other tools that are available in the market."
"The price is comparable."
"The product is highly-priced."
"Informatica Axon is a costly solution. I rate Informatica Axon a four out of ten for its pricing."
"Product licensing is very complicated. It would be helpful to have an online calculator to estimate the cost of a license."
"With Microsoft, we buy everything though an agreement, so we purchase volume licensing every year."
"MDS is a part of the SQL Server enterprise license. I am not aware of any additional costs."
"The solution does require a license and we have enterprise licenses."
"SAP is more expensive than Microsoft."
"Microsoft MDS is an expensive solution."
"I would like to see better pricing."
"The pricing of this solution is good."
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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
15%
Financial Services Firm
11%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Government
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
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