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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
214
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (2nd), Data Quality (1st), Business Process Management (BPM) (5th), Business-to-Business Middleware (2nd), API Management (6th), Cloud Data Integration (3rd), Data Governance (3rd), Test Data Management (3rd), Cloud Master Data Management (MDM) (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (2nd), Data Masking (2nd), Metadata Management (2nd), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (4th), Test Data Management Services (3rd), Product Information Management (PIM) (1st), Data Observability (2nd), AI Data Analysis (1st)
Microsoft MDS
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Master Data Management (MDM) Software (4th)
 

Featured Reviews

Divya-Raj - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Consultant cum Assistant Manager & Offshore Lead at Deloitte
Handles large data volumes effectively and offers competitive pricing
There is a lot of improvement required, as we still face some cache issues most of the time, which is a challenge that we expect to see resolved in the future. Additionally, there is some limitation when we are working with a tool, especially regarding In and Out parameters, and I feel that this aspect should be improved going ahead. We face issues with the API side, as Cloud Application Integration cannot handle large volumes; according to the API page, there is a limitation of 500 records or 500 MB. The AI integrated into the Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services solution is called Application Integration, where we still face challenges when dealing with huge volumes, as previously explained.
reviewer1524357 - PeerSpot reviewer
Solution Architect at a computer software company with 51-200 employees
Has supported endpoint management while revealing areas where usability and latency can improve
The couple of times we found issues with technical support from Microsoft for Microsoft MDS, they resolved them. The response time and understanding were adequate, though there was always a language barrier between the teams. The teams we worked with were in Korea, and it was sometimes a language issue.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"The most valuable features are the structure masking and platform masking."
"The data mapping capability is a valuable feature."
"I recommend Informatica because anyone with a bit of knowledge, even a beginner or intern, can explore, learn, and accomplish development tasks without much difficulty."
"The user interface is flexible and the visibility of the data flow is amazing."
"Initial setup was fairly easy."
"The solution is stable."
"Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services allows us to manage the entire data lifecycle in the insurance domain, supporting microservices architecture and leveraging AI and machine learning for data discovery, quality, and integration."
"The most valuable features are data quality, data integrate transformations, match-merge, and a few MDM solutions we build into data quality transformation."
"The backup and restore functionality are the solution's most valuable aspects."
"One of the main features I have found useful is the integration with Azure active directory."
"The ease of use is valuable."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft MDS is its management."
"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."
"Unlike specialized tools, MDS is adaptable for various industries, making it a versatile choice for master data management."
 

Cons

"I would like to have the solution in one product and technical support needs to be better."
"This service could be more cost-effective."
"The only thing that I can imagine that might be improved is how the available transactions verify addresses used. These transactions have a valid end date and must be used within the agreed timeframe."
"We'd like to see the microservices, which don't run yet because the solution is not yet fully cloud-based."
"The integration process is not easy."
"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."
"The initial setup was not very straightforward. Not complex, but not very simple either."
"When it comes to UI look and feel and user experience, Informatica is not as good as other solutions."
"JMD repositories have records that come in thousands and millions, which takes a long time to process."
"I do not like using Silverlight and Internet Explorer. The new 2019 version gets rid of that, which is one of the reasons why we are looking to switch."
"The program's navigation tools could be improved."
"From my understanding, MS, as of 2021, will not maintain the product going forward."
"Microsoft MDS' language should be simple so everyone can use it easily."
"If Microsoft MDS were part of Azure, it would be significantly more helpful."
"The Microsoft license cost could be lower."
"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."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"I rate the product's pricing a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"The licenses attached to the solution are highly priced."
"Informatica MDM is very expensive. Apart from licensing fees, they have broken down their products into multiple products, and they charge for each and every product. If the data is huge, they charge for the data. At times, we have to use third party services for data cleaning, and they charge for that as well."
"It is cost effective and an easily accessible tool."
"We switched to Informatica PIM because it was cheaper than the Oracle solution. It is cheaper initially, but they will bundle it later. This is what happens in the industry."
"Licensing is difficult to understand, but the team is always available to explain anything. They are very helpful."
"The price is neither too high nor too low."
"My understanding is that Informatica is quite expensive compare to other tools that are available in the market."
"Product licensing is very complicated. It would be helpful to have an online calculator to estimate the cost of a license."
"The solution does require a license and we have enterprise licenses."
"The pricing of this solution is good."
"SAP is more expensive than Microsoft."
"Microsoft MDS is an expensive solution."
"MDS is a part of the SQL Server enterprise license. I am not aware of any additional costs."
"With Microsoft, we buy everything though an agreement, so we purchase volume licensing every year."
"I would like to see better pricing."
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Answers from the Community

RT
Information Architect at Canadian Food Inspection Agency
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
Enterprise MDM Architect / Solution Arch at Volvo Group
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
Data Architect at World Vision
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
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
7%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
10%
Media Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business51
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise153
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise15
 

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 was pretty affordable. We implemented the solution without a problem.
What needs improvement with Microsoft MDS?
I cannot really give specifics about disadvantages. From what we have seen, speaking to customers, Microsoft MDS was sometimes a bit slow. The frustration they had was just around usability and use...
 

Also Known As

ActiveVOS, Active Endpoints, Address Verification, Persistent Data Masking
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 Amazon Web Services (AWS), Informatica, Salesforce and others in Cloud Data Integration. Updated: February 2026.
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