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Andre Collin - PeerSpot reviewer
Consultant at Viatic
Consultant
Top 10
A tool with the ability to aggregate and put together data from multiple sources into a single place
Pros and Cons
  • "The ability to aggregate and put together data from around fifty sources into one environment allows us to have a preview of everything in a single place, which is something we did not have previously in our company."
  • "I think everything related to the APIs and the manageability of the APIs in Informatica MDM are areas where improvements are required."

What is our primary use case?

I use Informatica MDM to align data in my company.

How has it helped my organization?

The ability to aggregate and put together data from around fifty sources into one environment allows us to have a preview of everything in a single place, which is something we did not have previously in our company.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature I see in Informatica MDM stems from everything that touches the area of data governance.

What needs improvement?

I think everything related to the APIs and the manageability of the APIs in Informatica MDM are areas where improvements are required.

Buyer's Guide
Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC)
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
817,457 professionals have used our research since 2012.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Informatica MDM for five years. I use the solution's latest version. I am a user of the solution.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Around 250 users of the solution exist in my company.

There is a need to use the solution in my company at least three times a week.

How are customer service and support?

I rate the technical support an eight out of ten.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have experience with other solutions. I switched to Informatica MDM from other solutions since it offers better scalability options and interoperability.

How was the initial setup?

I rate the product's initial setup a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is a difficult setup process, and ten is an easy setup process.

My company has deployed Informatica MDM with the services offered by our cloud partner.

Informatica MDM's deployment phase takes around a year to be completed.

Two people, who are data engineers specialized in Informatica MDM, are required for the deployment phase of the product.

What about the implementation team?

Informatica MDM's deployment phase was carried out with the help of my company's in-house team and Informatica's partner.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

I rate Informatica MDM's price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price.

What other advice do I have?

Ideally, only one person is required to take care of the maintenance part of the product, but with the number of terminals where the solution is deployed, there may be a need for three or four people.

I recommend the solution to those who plan to use it.

I rate the overall solution an eight out of ten.

Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
reviewer2122719 - PeerSpot reviewer
Professor in MDA gradution
Real User
Top 10
A Master Data Management solution with robust matching technology
Pros and Cons
  • "I like that Informatica MDM has robust matching technology. Informatica MDM is also porting the external Java applications for validations. I can consider that a must-have. It is also exposed to Rest API calls, and we can engage in real-time integrations with any third-party systems."
  • "The configurations could be better. It is a bit confusing because we must develop two tools when building a data model in Informatica MDM. Even though Informatica MDM is a single tool, we have our hub console plus the provisioning tool within that. Whatever data model we are building in the hub console, we have to develop it in the provisioning tool again. It is double the work to create a data model. We are also using external calls or the Java custom plans functions. This can be both positive and negative. Since MDM as a client does not support any complex validation, we have to depend on the external call or a Java call. Every time we deployed, the entire solution was impacted if something went wrong."

What is our primary use case?

We use Informatica MDM for master data maintenance across our organization. We have multiple departments, like material real estate, trading, and supply. We use it for consolidation, harmonization, and central master data maintenance. We are also integrating it with the nonrecipient systems.

What is most valuable?

I like that Informatica MDM has robust matching technology. Informatica MDM is also porting the external Java applications for validations. I can consider that a must-have. It is also exposed to Rest API calls, and we can engage in real-time integrations with any third-party systems.

What needs improvement?

The configurations could be better. It is a bit confusing because we must develop two tools when building a data model in Informatica MDM. Even though Informatica MDM is a single tool, we have our hub console plus the provisioning tool within that. Whatever data model we are building in the hub console, we have to develop it in the provisioning tool again. It is double the work to create a data model. 

We are also using external calls or the Java custom plans functions. This can be both positive and negative. Since MDM as a client does not support any complex validation, we have to depend on the external call or a Java call. Every time we deployed, the entire solution was impacted if something went wrong. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Informatica MDM for four years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Informatica MDM can be more stable. There are some issues and some crashes, and sometimes, with the data load, we usually feel like we are doing an initial data load for any project. Sometimes, it could also be down to the production environment.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give stability a six.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

Informatica MDM is a scalable solution. We probably have 1000 direct and indirect users with multiple use cases. But people solely working with Informatica MDM might be around 200 or 300. Most users are from business IT data support.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give scalability an eight.

How are customer service and support?

Technical support is very responsive.

How would you rate customer service and support?

Positive

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I was using SAP MDM, which is currently end of its life, so we migrated from SAP MDM to Informatica MDM.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup is straightforward. We have to make a jar file which we have to download from the link and download it as a client in our local mission. However, there are some challenges if we deploy Informatica MDM with IDQ on-premises. The deployment time depends on the use case. One or two people can maintain this solution.

What was our ROI?

We have seen a return on investment. From a business perspective, there have been many improvements since we migrated from SAP MDM.

What other advice do I have?

I would recommend Informatica MDM to potential users. Even though Informatica MDM does not come with data quality, Informatica as a whole has some of the right tools. We have embedded the MDM with the IDQ informatic data quality in ways we can interact. It is the best fit for non-SAP systems.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Informatica MDM an eight.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

Private Cloud

If public cloud, private cloud, or hybrid cloud, which cloud provider do you use?

Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC)
November 2024
Learn what your peers think about Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC). Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: November 2024.
817,457 professionals have used our research since 2012.
MDM COE Lead at LTI - Larsen & Toubro Infotech
Real User
Core master data management solution that offers robust match concepts and algorithms
Pros and Cons
  • "It has been leading the market with hierarchy management and all the different match concepts and algorithms. They're very robust."
  • "Informatica's issue is the licensing. Right now, there are a lot of new gen MDMs that are offering a lot in a single licensing model."

What is our primary use case?

We use this solution primarily for core master data management and deduplication.

Recently, they have come up with cloud versions, which I have not experienced. It's mostly deployed on-premise.

We have a limited number of users who are using this solution and working with the master data.

What is most valuable?

Initially, there wasn't a great product competing with Informatica for market management. It has been leading the market with hierarchy management and all the different match concepts and algorithms. They're very robust.

What needs improvement?

Informatica's issue is the licensing. Right now, there are a lot of new gen MDMs that are offering a lot in a single licensing model. VOS or Entity 360 are offering licensing differently.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with this solution for more than 10 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It's stable and reliable.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It's scalable.

How are customer service and support?

I have had mixed experience with technical support. Sometimes it's very quick. Sometimes there isn't a quick turnaround and we don't have a person to reach out to directly to get an answer from them.

How was the initial setup?

Installation was challenging. Informatica has a very robust engine, which takes a little bit of time, but they're stable.

We have a technical team of 50 people. Deployment depends on
the size and complexity of the requirements. Starting from scratch, any new implementation should take around five to six months. For new gen MDMs, the implementation can be done in three and a half months.

What was our ROI?

The ROI depends on the business requirement. If they're using their core master data and that data is helping them to address a lot of issues, then the return on investment is definitely very high. If an organization isn't using that to full scale, then it might not be that great.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

It's offers value for money. They're more competitive with respect to pricing and offerings.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
PeerSpot user
reviewer1347900 - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise Architect at a mining and metals company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Good at extending the data model but not for the complete handling of the data analytics
Pros and Cons
  • "It has flexibility in extending the data model."
  • "The data quality component is very good."
  • "The advertising makes promises about data analytics that it does not keep."
  • "Pre-sales technical support is much better than post-sales technical support."

What is our primary use case?

I am not quite sure that the product will be part of our use cases anymore. We started off with it because of the data lineage. In other words, we used it because we also used the older Informatica program and it had been serving a purpose for us as a data management tool. But now we are in the process of developing our own solution for at least part of that functionality.  

We currently plan to keep Informatica MDM, but not for the complete handling of the data analytics. We use MDM for data gathering in big data environments. We start with Informatica and do further analysis outside the product.  

What is most valuable?

I think the most valuable part of Informatica is the flexibility in extending the data model. I think that is the biggest benefit. The data quality component is also an important part of it.  

What needs improvement?

I have begun to lose track of what needs to be improved because we only use the product now for what it is best at and in those areas it does not need improvement.  

There are two main things and that make up the complete Informatica suite solution. One is the insight into the data lineage which was a huge promise made by the product, but one that it never delivered in practice. That was the big problem that we are trying to solve in another way. The second part of the solution, especially for MDM is its ability to use the data by integrating with other process engines.  

So the insight into the data or the data analysis part needs to be improved.  

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Informatica MDM (Master Data Management) for about two years now.  

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

Informatica has been stable. It does not have downtime during processing.  

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

I would say that Informatica is scalable. Right now we have about 20 people using the product directly. The scalability would be in the volume and types of data it can scan and collect and it is good at performing these services.  

How are customer service and technical support?

With technical support, there is a big gap between sales, presales, and support for the end-users. Like with the data analysis the process starts good but in the end, there is no delivery. There are too many promises and too little delivery. So the support could be also improved after the sales, or I would say that the post-sale support should be improved to be in alignment with the pre-sale support.  

How was the initial setup?

Informatica is definitely not easy to install. In order to do the installation and to set up the whole program, I would say it is complex.  

What other advice do I have?

On a scale from one to ten (where one is the worst and ten is the best), if I were to rate Informatica MDM and I had a review site, I would mark it as a seven-and-a-half out of ten possible points. It has not delivered on all it has promised.  

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Senior Techno Functional Architect at a computer software company with 5,001-10,000 employees
MSP
Enables us to build composite applications with BPMN 2.0 and BPEL
Pros and Cons
  • "There isn't any human touch involved. It's just an automated business process to build different applications and talking to various APIs using the client's ecosystems. We then build new functionalities out of it."
  • "I know that there are two good features, APN and ServiceNow but we haven't explored all of its features yet."
  • "We haven't had many technical issues. We don't use all of the components of the tool that are more complex and error-prone."

What is our primary use case?

Our primary use case is to build composite applications for our clients and to automate the business processes. We build new automation applications out of it

What is most valuable?

Our requirement is to orchestrate. We talk to different integration points in our client's systems and get the data from different APIs. Data gathered is enriched/cleansed and filtered with application of business rules . Output of application can be a communication sent out to clients customer via different channels or an update to their core data elements via API

There isn't any human touch involved. It's just an automated business process to build different applications and talking to various APIs using the client's ecosystems. Human workflow feature of this tool has not been explored.

What needs improvement?

We don't use all of the features like Human workflow. Moreover for build human workflow application would prefer products like Appian and Service. Would like to this tool to enable features like BAM and inbuilt BRE. Currently we are using custom integration to external rule engine built using JBOSS Guvnor.

For how long have I used the solution?

We have been using Informatica for the past five to six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

For the kind of application we have built and running on this tool, its been very stable and has given consistent performance. The nice feature of enabling logging and persistence level at individual process level gives the flexibility to optimise the performance of process by keeping those attributes at lowest level.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have not used it with high availability setup. But there is plan to enable it behind LB and deploy it on Amazon cloud.

How are customer service and technical support?

We very rarely contact their customer support. We generally only contact them for version upgrades and any major upgrades on the server version. Then we use them in our test environment. We'll use it and then we go to production. But we have only done that twice 

We haven't had many technical issues. We don't use all of the components of the tool that are more complex like Huma. Workflow which can be more error prone . We have a straightforward orchestration flow in which we haven't faced any issue.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

Earlier we were using product named Intalio. We switched due to its increased license cost and frequent issues.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was quite straightforward. They provide steps that were quite clearly defined. You only need to follow the steps in order to configure the server.

I already had experience working with different tools. It was quite easy to do this setup on my own, without consulting anybody.

What about the implementation team?

Inhouse as I have good amount of experience in other BPM tools with more complex setup requirements.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Many other tools were evaluated before finalizing om Activevos. As we did not have requirement for human workflow, so tools.like Appian, Lombardi ans Oracle BPM were not considered and there pricing was also not in he budget. Tools like WSo2, Activiti were considered for evaluation.

What other advice do I have?

Informatica actually does not sell this product. They acquired this product to support their own MDM productt and they want it to be used in conjunction with their MDM product. They have no intention to sell it as a standalone tool to any other company. But because we already have experience in BPM they were more convinced that we'll be able to use this without asking too many questions. So they were okay to give it as a standalone product to us. But they do not sell this product as a standalone product to anybody else.

I would rate it a seven out of ten due to lack of inbuilt BAM and BRE features.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Partner
PeerSpot user
reviewer1305990 - PeerSpot reviewer
Head of Big Data and BI Development at a insurance company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Difficult initial setup and needs better support for data discovery but has an excellent data profiler
Pros and Cons
  • "The way that the solution scans is very useful."
  • "They have to improve their relationship discovery tool. They say that they have AI inside, but this AI did not automatically find relationships or suggested relationships between entities."

What is our primary use case?

We primarily used the solution because we wanted to be aware of metadata management solutions for our Data Lake, in order to manage the assets in the Data Lake and also to manage the ETL or the data ingestion into the Data Lake.

What is most valuable?

The solution has an excellent data profiler.

The way that the solution scans is very useful. 

The discovery worked well for the AS400, which is a very old database.

What needs improvement?

It is not the best solution on the market. 

They don't have a good solution for SSIS scanning, and we don't have the good solution for Microsoft OLAP and Microsoft Tabular. 

Another thing that can be improved is their ability to add custom screens or custom views and manage the custom server and customs views. Currently, it is pretty closed. You cannot add columns to the views, which makes the views very narrow. In order to see data, you have to do a lot of clicks just to get to a particular field.

They have to improve their relationship discovery tool. They say that they have AI inside, but this AI did not automatically find relationships or suggested relationships between entities.

The solution needs better support for data discovery or scans.

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using the solution for almost two years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution isn't too stable. If it crashes, it takes time to boot it back up. It's not as stable as you would expect it to be for this type of solution, which is concerning.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

We have five people using the solution as of right now.

Potentially, it is scalable, but is not automatically scalable. If you needed to scale it out, then you would have to add some more nodes in order to be able to support the scalability. As long as you are in the boundaries of your initial setup, then it won't scale. However, if you are exceeding that, then you have to increase memory and data store and maybe even some machines to your cluster in order to support the scalability.

How are customer service and technical support?

Technical support could be improved. From an implementation standpoint, their "customer success" team proved to be unhelpful and did not make what turned out to be a complex set up any easier.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We didn't previously use a different solution.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was very, very complex. It took us a few months to complete the entire set up. There were a lot of bugs during installation. Also, when we wanted to upgrade from, I believe it was a 10.2.1 to 10.2.2, our production environment was down for a few weeks just because of the update. It was not a straightforward experience.

We had a very complicated environment, so when we worked on this, we also implemented the SDK or the API mechanism that came with the suite. Therefore, there were four people working on the setup for this environment. We also had support from the local integrator and we had a lot of support from some specialists from India.

What about the implementation team?

We had an integrator and some specialists from India assist us in the implementation.

Most of the work we did by ourselves, but we wanted some help from a local integrator. They had a process that they called "customer success". We had a weekly call with them, with the customer success team. The customer success representative brought in the product team for discussions, but it didn't really help us, to be honest.

It requires between one and two people to handle maintenance on the solution currently.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

We ran a proof of concept or a full selection process and we compared it with some other tools. We selected this tool because it had better support for AS400, which was our main source.

What other advice do I have?

We decided to stop the project because it was too much effort and we couldn't benefit from the solution. We saw that it required a lot of effort just to make it work, so we decided to stop the implementation. We stopped using the solution about two months ago.

If other companies attempt to implement this solution, I would suggest that they try to stick to the features which are there and don't try to extend it because it is not that extendable.

In our case, we needed to get a better contract with the local integrator and make sure that they got paid only upon successful completion of the project. Instead, we paid upfront. I'd advise other companies not to make that same mistake. 

I'd rate the solution five out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
PeerSpot user
Delivery Manager of PIM at a tech vendor with 1,001-5,000 employees
Vendor
Valuable features include: flexible task-based workflows, dashboards and graphs, and channel specific exports.

Valuable Features:

New ProductBusiness user-friendly web user interface, dashboards and graphs, flexible task-based workflow, ability to use library of out-of-box data quality rules or define custom DQ business rules, channel specific exports, fully customizable BPM workflow engine for task management and notifications, enterprise scalable performance, flexible data model and hierarchy management.

Improvements to My Organization:

Our Implementation Delivery team is able to design and implement robust business solutions for PIM and Product MDM for our many large, global Retail, Manufacturing and Distribution clients.

Room for Improvement:

Additional pre-built, "plug and play" out of the box functionality should continue to be built.  Additional pre-built capabilities and connectors to better integrate with social product data for ratings/reviews, additional Ecomm and external DAM solutions.

Use of Solution:

Approximately 4 years.

Deployment Issues:

Some technical issues have been encountered and resolved during migrations and cutovers. 

Stability Issues:

We have seen stability issues with older versions, particularly 6.x and below. Newer versions have proven stable.

Scalability Issues:

Scalability is on par or better than any other solution on the market. One of our customers has over 21 million SKUs in PIM, and others have 100's of international users.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Infoverity is an implementation partner of Informatica and many other PIM/MDM best-in-class vendors
PeerSpot user
Chiradeep Bhattacharya - PeerSpot reviewer
Practice Leader at a tech services company with 1,001-5,000 employees
Real User
Top 20
Good customization for data search and sharing; GUI needs to be upgraded
Pros and Cons
  • "Able to customize data search and data sharing."
  • "The GUI needs to be a little more user-friendly and appealing."

What is our primary use case?

We use Axon for controlled and governed data sharing as well as for the policies and principles from a data governance perspective. Our use case was for an airport company and we used Axon in tandem with Datacat Log EDC. We customize data search and data sharing. We have a partnership with Informatica. 

What is most valuable?

The management of the policy is very useful. The ability to customize data search and data sharing is useful. The solution has all the necessary features. 

What needs improvement?

The GUI needs to be a little more user-friendly and appealing. Salesforce, for example, although in a different category, is very user-friendly and I think if they were to include some of the Salesforce principles, it would be helpful. Informatica needs to do a better job in terms of educating users. 

For how long have I used the solution?

I've been using this solution for three years. 

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

The solution is stable and dependable as long as we keep an eye on the servers. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The solution is scalable. 

How are customer service and support?

The support process needs to be more agile. 

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup took a few days. It wasn't very complex but there were some initial challenges because we were trying to setup the Informatica Data catalog, EDC, at the same time. The deployment was reasonable but not very smooth. We have around 300 users.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Licensing costs are generally on the higher side.

Which other solutions did I evaluate?

Collibra was a solution we evaluated but Informatica was the final choice.

What other advice do I have?

I rate this solution seven out of 10.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer:
PeerSpot user
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.
Updated: November 2024
Buyer's Guide
Download our free Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) Report and get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions.