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

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary
 

Categories and Ranking

Informatica Intelligent Dat...
Average Rating
8.0
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) (2nd), Data Masking (2nd), Metadata Management (1st), Test Data Management Services (4th), Product Information Management (PIM) (1st), Data Observability (2nd)
Microsoft MDS
Average Rating
7.6
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 16.3%, up 13.7% compared to last year.
Microsoft MDS, on the other hand, focuses on Master Data Management (MDM) Software, holds 12.6% mindshare, down 15.2% since last year.
Data Management Platforms (DMP)
Master Data Management (MDM) Software
 

Featured Reviews

Raj Sethupathi - PeerSpot reviewer
Jun 13, 2024
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
Jun 10, 2023
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

"The features I find most valuable is the synchronization, verification, functionalities and all the data integration features."
"New tools are coming out that will enable you to achieve 90 percent of use cases with the out-of-the-box configuration, but I would like to keep Informatica tight here. Otherwise, you need a Java user edit course and other things to do multiple things that you cannot configure out of the box. They have to go through those use cases to do something if those can also be configured rather than coded."
"The product's most valuable feature is the ability to select the data flow and lineage."
"I give the stability a ten out of ten."
"Seeing the data in the mapping itself is really nice."
"The OAuth feature is the most valuable feature for authentication."
"The application integration will give you more flexibility when dealing with APIs."
"The tool does give a good ROI."
"The tool is easy to use."
"Compared to other databases, it is easier to manage and administer."
"It has a very good feature called Excel plug-in. You just have to install the plug-in, and then it directly connects to the MDS instance where you can maintain and manage your data and publish it right through Excel. You don't need to go to the front end to make any changes. It has easy integration with SQL Server, and you can use SSIS to do the ETLs. It is a part of the Microsoft stack. It works with most of the Microsoft stuff."
"The ease of use is valuable."
"The most valuable feature is the administration console."
"The solution is easy to install."
"More generic related things can be included in the services."
"The best thing about it is that it comes with the Microsoft package."
 

Cons

"Informatica Cloud Data Integration can improve by being more user-friendly. When you're working with the solution a lot of technical knowledge is required. It's not a solution that anyone can use properly, you need knowledge of what's happening at the back end, such as SQL. When you get stuck, you need to look into your logic. For other tools, such as Dell Boomi, anyone can use them."
"The solution is quite expensive."
"The configuration process is pretty lengthy and challenging and could be made easier to understand."
"There may be some types of limitations with the performance."
"There are also some technical issues sometimes with integrations because clients have a lot of different types of data sources."
"There are a small number of UI bugs that occur on occasion."
"I would like to see support for more data sources."
"The solution still is a bit manual in its functionality. We want t to be more automation-driven."
"More generic related things can be included in the services."
"The stability could be improved."
"The solution could be better integrated into Microsoft's other products."
"Stability can be fragile at times. If you are not attentive or make a mistake, it can cause problems."
"JMD repositories have records that come in thousands and millions, which takes a long time to process."
"There are occasions when the solution maintains SD and we get duplications of MDS."
"It would be a better option to have an on-cloud version."
"The Microsoft license cost could be lower."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"Informatica MDM's pricing is not cheap but comparable to other vendors."
"I rate the product's pricing a nine on a scale of one to ten, where one is low price, and ten is high price."
"You pay for this solution based on IPUs, Informatica Processing Units. This depends on how much data you process and how much memory you consume from the cloud provider, and you pay as you go."
"The solution is very expensive."
"The price is comparable."
"Informatica MDM is a costly solution because it comes as a bundle. They are also globally positioning themselves and are definitely working on very upgraded technologies. If someone wanted to do it on the cloud, they have a lot of flexibility because they upgrade themselves according to the current needs. It definitely comes with a lot of features and that's the reason why it's costly. The licensing cost should be approximately one million dollars. It's about four to five times that of other vendors."
"The price of Informatica Cloud Data Integration could be reduced."
"It's an expensive solution."
"MDS is a part of the SQL Server enterprise license. I am not aware of any additional costs."
"Microsoft MDS is an expensive solution."
"Product licensing is very complicated. It would be helpful to have an online calculator to estimate the cost of a license."
"I would like to see better pricing."
"The solution does require a license and we have enterprise licenses."
"SAP is more expensive than Microsoft."
"The pricing of this solution is good."
"With Microsoft, we buy everything though an agreement, so we purchase volume licensing every year."
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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
13%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Insurance Company
6%
Computer Software Company
17%
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
Find out what your peers are saying about Palantir, Informatica, Oracle and others in Data Management Platforms (DMP). Updated: October 2024.
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