IBM InfoSphere DataStage Reviews

My company is a consulting firm and I'm a managing partner. We consult for large size companies in the telecommunications, banking and insurance sectors. We partner with IBM. We're not using the latest version of DataStage but one of the more recent ones. I use the product for a migration project. It's a DB2 to Oracle migration project and the source database is mainframe. I need DataStage for that purpose.

I think the ETL tools are the most valuable features. It has an IBM tool, a friendly UI and it makes things more comfortable. A second good feature is that after you make some ETLs, migrations source to target, DataStage is capable of providing details and extracting data. The push down feature is also a valuable feature. 

The price would be the first thing I would want to change. Reduced cost would allow more customers to choose the product. It's quite expensive in relation to the cost of other similar solutions. I think it would also be helpful if the product was more adaptable to other platforms and vendors. I would also like to see an improvement in support. 

I've been using the product for more than two years. 

The product is stable. 

The product is scalable.

We do sometimes have issues in terms of support with regard to IBM products in this country. It's difficult to get what we want and it could really be improved and made more efficient. 

I recall that the setup was quite difficult. We had to call in some IBM people. It's possible that they have improved that aspect. I know there's a difference in installation depending on whether it's on-prem or cloud. It's possible that the cloud version is easier to install but I don't have experience with that. 

I would rate InfoSphere an eight out of 10. 

The most powerful use of this solution is for full delivery integration. Aside from the ETL aspect, it makes data lineage. We are customers of IBM InfoSphere and I'm head of IT integration and finance transformation.

The key feature for me is the flexibility this solution offers. 

The solution is currently lacking virtualization ability. If they were to include it, it could be a good evolution on this framework. I'd like to see an improvement in support and a more customer friendly and knowledgeable support staff.  

I've been using this solution for over 20 years. 

Scalability is a question of licensing, but it can definitely be done.

Technical support could be better - more knowledgeable and customer friendly. 

We outsourced deployment to IBM and didn't have any issues. Implementation took about two weeks. We have between 20 and 30 users in the company and our maintenance is carried out by IBM.

We pay an annual licensing fee. 

Yes, we evaluated other tools, and this tool is competing internally with our PySQL development. It's a battle between code and local.

I rate this solution an eight out of 10. 

I am a consultant. I provide product information for our clients.

IBM InfoSphere DataStage is a good product.

It is quite useful and powerful.

From a practice point of view, solutions such as IBM InfoSphere DataStage and Oracle Data Integrator are losing ground, whereas open-source solutions are becoming increasingly powerful.

For example, we are currently working hard on several examples, and in a few years, open-source solutions will take the lead in the market. It will be used by large enterprises. 

Clients are looking for open-source solutions more and more.

It would be useful to provide support for Python, R, and Java.

I have more than 22 years of experience with many different products. 

It has been three to four years that we have been using IBM InfoSphere DataStage.

I have no issues with the stability of IBM InfoSphere DataStage.

Clients are quite dependant on support from the vendor. For example, if you want to activate a new feature on the product, you must create a ticket. You have no information on when it will be implemented, and the vendor does not know because they have a stream of tickets that are completed by the priority given to the ticket.

I am a consultant. I have different projects with different platforms. We are constantly going back and forth to different solutions for different projects.

I have had clients who have used Amazon Redshift.

Over the years, my clients have used many different products. For example, they use IBM Landscape and we use IBM InfoSphere.

The initial setup was straightforward. We did not have issues.

Comparable solutions will have common disadvantages, which is the total cost of the project.

It's quite expensive.

From time to time, I evaluate different products for my clients.

We have had different projects with three of four clients. The average term per project has been nine months and one year.

If you are working with an open-source solution or another solution, you can implement some features by yourself. For example, in the case of Amazon, which has Amazon Lambda, you can easily write your code in Python or Java, and it will orchestrate it. You can create your features yourself easily and gives you more abilities to make your solution run quicker, eliminating the dependence from the vendor.

I would rate IBM InfoSphere DataStage an eight out of ten.

We are using this solution with enterprise customers for ETL (Extract, Transform and Load). The clients are just using it for retail processes.  

The ETL features are the most valuable to our clients.  

The product is pretty complex to set up. I think it is quite expensive. So, the set up could be simplified and the price could be brought in line.  

I have been using IBM Infosphere for 20 years.  

Once you have Infosphere up and running properly, it is stable.  

The product is definitely scalable.  

We previously worked with DataStage Informatica, we worked with Talend, we worked with SSIS, we looked at a lot of things in the course of providing solutions for customers.  

We probably work with SSIS (SQL Server Integration Services) more often because it is cheaper and easier to get hold of. More clients run SSIS than most of the others, but then most clients do not have massive workloads that require something more robust.  

It is quite a complex tool to set up properly in any environment. It requires someone who has experience with the product.  

My advice for anyone considering IBM Infosphere Datastage is to use a decent consulting house to help you once you get around to committing to the product. Do not assume that you will be able to go at this alone unless you have an extremely talented staff.  

On a scale from one to ten (where one is the worst and ten is the best), I would rate this product as a seven-out-of-ten.  

I'm an enterprise and information architect, and we're a customer of IBM. I personally don't use the product but assist companies in the market do for making the integration picture and design.

ETL is the most valuable feature, extract, transform and load. 

I think that performance monitoring could be improved. I know that my colleagues don't give good monitoring. I'm not sure if it's because of the product or because they don't do it normally, but performance monitoring is an issue. I also believe integration with the cloud is not so clear. It's typically a heavy system that people install on-premise. You can install it in the cloud, but it's not so straightforward. You don't find a lot of information unless you go to the IBM cloud. I think IBM is behind in cloud strategy, we would like to put it in the cloud, but there isn't much information about that. 

There are three things that could improve - the cloud, monitoring and cloud integration. It's a solid product but not a modern one and of course it depends what you're looking for. 

I've been using this product for 15 years. 

In the company I'm working with now you can see it's scalable.

We've been using the product a long time and hardly need technical support, which is great. We have very few problems.

I've never done an installation but I believe it's relatively complex, IBM usually is. 

I think DataStage is a product that one should look at as a good candidate in this segment.

I would rate this product a seven out of 10.

We implement this solution for our customers. The majority of them are Enterprise companies.

This solution is very easy to use because you can design to compile and to run.

The most valuable feature is the ability to transfer information via notes.

The documentation and in-application help for this solution need to be improved, especially for new features. By comparison, in Talend, there is help available for all of the features.

One of my clients has a problem using this solution with MongoDB.

In the next release of this solution, I would like to see the ability to copy and paste schemas. It would be very good because as it is now, you have to save the schema to a repository and then re-load it. It can be done in Talend, but in DataStage, it is not as good.

This is a stable solution. You have to be careful when you install a service pack because sometimes it causes problems. There may be a second service pack to solve problems that were introduced by the first one.

Scaling this solution is not difficult. When you first install you chose what components you need. My clients are enterprise companies, with at least five hundred or a thousand employees.

The are several technical support teams, and the quality of support depends on where the customer is situated. Normally, technical support answers quickly, but it can be improved.

The initial setup is not easy. You have to be an expert to install DataStage.

Sometimes I get calls from clients who ask me to install this solution because their Unix administrator is not able to do it. You have to configure your OS, Database, Web server, and more. There are a lot of things to install.  

If you are not experienced then it is not possible to install.

Small and medium-sized companies cannot afford to pay for this solution.

This solution is for larger companies. Smaller businesses use Talend.

This is a good product, but there is room for improvement.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

My customers use it. I don't use this solution. It's used to extract data from several different sources, as well as to store data and load it into a data warehouse.

The most valuable feature is the product's versatility to inject data.

The interface needs improvement. It is really too technical. That is the main problem.

In the next release, they could offer more connectors with the new database, especially cloud databases.

We've been using this solution for five or six years.

It is very stable.

It depends on project and the customer. Mostly, we have three or four developer users. Maybe three people maintain the solution.

Their technical support is very good.

We used Microsoft Talend previously.

The initial setup is quite complex. Actually, it is probably very quick to deploy, but a difficult project. Typical projects about ETL or extracting some information take dozens of days.

Try to do a lot of training before beginning the project.

I would rate this solution as seven out of ten because I think there are some problems with the design of the interface. They should also develop new connectors. The solution is quite complex for people and you need a lot of training to use it.

Anything that is administrative related, as I don't program in this environment.

The recovery feature. We had DS repos in a bad condition, but IBM couldn't recover it.

I've been using it for one year.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

No issues encountered.

Mostly, I would give 9/10. I did have one bad experience, so that leaves a bad impression.

It's generally good, although sometimes I see a lot of confusion about how to resolve issues.

It was complex.

It was setup by an outside vendor.

No other options were evaluated.

Don't use the Netezza adapter, as it's poor