Informatica PowerCenter Reviews

We receive the data files from insurance carriers. We load the data, do some processing, and then make the data available to their internal systems. We apply some business transformations and data validations and share the data in the healthcare domain and EDI B2B exchange.

Its version varies based on the customer, but when it comes to the cloud, we have the latest version. We have been using Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services (IICS) for two years. We have used IICS for two purposes. One is for data integration, and the other one is for application integration.

Complex transformations can be easily achieved by using PowerCenter. The processing layer does transformations and other things. About 80% of my transformations can be achieved by using the middle layer. For the remaining 15% to 20% transformations, I can go in and create stored procedures in the respective databases. Mapplets is the feature through which we can reuse transformations across pipelines. Transformations and caching are the key features that we have been using frequently. 

Informatica PowerCenter is one of the best solutions or products in the data integration space. We have extensively used PowerCenter for integration purposes. We usually look at the best bridge solution in our architecture so that it can sustain for maybe a couple of years. Usually, we go with the solution that fits best and has proven and time-tested technology.

Its licensing can be improved. It should be features-wise and not bundle-wise. A bundle will definitely be costly. In addition, we might use one or two features. That's why the pricing model should be based on the features. The model should be flexible enough based on the features.

Their support should also be more responsive to premium customers.

We have been dealing with this product for around 20 years.

It is stable.

It is easy to scale. It has the concept of a grid, but it is too costly because you also need Informatica big data edition. Informatica PowerCenter has its own software licensing called big data edition. So, whenever we want to scale to a huge volume, we need to go with big data. It has horizontal scaling, which always impacts the price. I can go for a four-node cluster grid or an eight-node cluster grid, which will have an impact on the price.

We have scaled it for one of our enterprise customers, and we had a little bit of complexity in setting it up, but we were able to achieve the desired goals with respect to the performance.

We have been in touch with Informatica support. They should be more responsive. They should react quickly to premium customers.

Different products are suitable for different use cases. One unified product cannot address multiple use cases. For example, Informatica may not be suitable for real-time integration, but it may be helpful for batch integration. Similarly, MuleSoft caters to low latency, but it doesn't get into high latency, which means it is not suitable for larger data processing systems. That's why we need to have a combination of technologies. For example, I may say that I have a resource or a person who has a primary skill and a secondary skill. Primary skill is specialized, and then secondary skill is complementary to that. Similarly, every product has a primary thing and a secondary thing. For Informatica, it is the batch processing, not the real-time data processing. It only processes the structured data, but it does not process unstructured data. For unstructured data, you need to go for a different product. For the cloud version, they have introduced IICS specifically for catering to the application integration requirements.

It is a simple process because we have a pool of experts in our team. Some manual work could be required. We did have challenges while setting it up, but we could also resolve those challenges. 

We provide development, integration, operations, and maintenance services for Informatica solutions to the customers. We do ETL monitoring, and we monitor the daily loads and resolve and manage the pipeline features. 

We also handle the change requests coming from the customer and performance optimization. We may sometimes also look at the transformations optimization, caching, and all those things.

It is for big enterprises. We have leveraged Informatica for big enterprises but not for small and medium enterprises because it is a very costly product as compared to other products. We propose this solution only for enterprise customers. For small to medium enterprises, we would propose the Microsoft solution.

Its licensing is currently bundle-wise. It should be features-wise and not bundle-wise.

It is a very mature product, but now everyone is moving to the cloud. They need to give more attention and focus more on the IICS rather than PowerCenter. PowerCenter on-premises will cater to one or two industries, and they should give more features in IICS. It can cater to only 70% of the features of Informatica PowerCenter. The data integration is currently not as mature in IICS. It doesn't have Mapplets, and we have faced some constraints. We have already logged a service request for this.

I would rate Informatica PowerCenter a nine out of ten.

This solution is really the backbone of what we do. Informatica PowerCenter is one of the most used platforms for data governance in the banking and insurance industry. It's quite expensive so it's not used much outside the industry, but it's very reliable and strong in everything connected to data management and data governance strategy. For our industry, that is crucial. We are customers of Informatica and I'm the head of big data and solution architecture. 

From my point of view, the solution has two valuable features. It has the ability to manage a huge quantity of data along with a high level of reliability from a performance point of view. Secondly, it has all the tools and features within the platform to establish a real data governance strategy. That includes lineage data preparation, ETL, ELP, everything regarding monitoring and processes that are implemented in the platform. It's quite feature full in that regard.

The solution currently requires quite an established data center in place because there is no option for software as a service so the best option to install the platform is on-prem. I know Informatica is thinking about it because they are introducing a brand new platform for big data management, but it doesn't yet have the same level of features as PowerCenter. This is something they can improve on. There are some significant differences between the two platforms.

The other issue is price. I understand this is a high-level professional tool designed for big companies that have a great need for managing huge amounts of data and I understand these kinds of tools are quite expensive, but sometimes the cost is too high. Their focus is obviously a high-level market but I think there would be other companies who would want to use it but it's too expensive for them. 

I'd like to see improved on-prem support like Cloudera which is very oriented towards traditional databases, like Oracle, SQL Server and others. 

We've been using this solution for five years. 

It is clearly a stable solution, otherwise it would not be used in industries such as banking and insurance. Technically speaking, it's very stable and reliable. In my opinion, it's one of the most stable and reliable platforms for data governance.

Technical support is good and a lot has improved over the years. 

Most of my customers use solutions in the cloud so I've used Azure in AWS and GCP. There are lots of services, platform services, or software as a service, tools that are used for the same purposes or objectives, like data governance, data preparation, data integration. It's hard to compare because the environment is completely different and they have different issues. PowerCenter is quite a traditional technology. A product like Hadoop, for example, for storage and process management, has the same objectives but they are fulfilled in a completely different way.

The initial setup is not so easy but once it's been deployed it's quite reliable from a performance point of view.

My advice for this product is to be aware of what's involved and be sure about deploying and using it because it's a very technical tool, something you cannot buy and install in some weird brutal machine. It requires planning and has to be managed, not only in terms of using it, but also economically speaking, because of the cost.

I would rate this solution a nine out of 10. 

One of my use cases is integrating personnel data from multiple systems.

Once you have learned Informatica, it is very easy to use.

The feedback that I have received from team members is that they found it easy to work with.

It is very difficult to learn.

The documentation could be improved. For example, if they were to create a system like SAS Books or IBM Redbooks that includes books on how to install, and how to troubleshoot problems, then it would be great.

I would like to see a centralized dashboard that can be used to access all of the Informatica products, rather than having a set of fragmented applications. A consolidated system with everything in a single platform would make it easier for technicians, as well as when it comes to purchasing it. That would be amazing.

I have been using Informatica PowerCenter for two years.

This is a stable product that has been around for a long time.

We have approximately eight people who use Informatica in the organization.

The customer service is good but they can't move you through the entire installation and troubleshooting process.

I also have experience with solutions from IBM, SAS, and other vendors.

My IT team was responsible for the deployment. Our team has approximately 12 people and they are responsible for installation and maintenance, including upgrades.

I consider this to be an expensive product.

In summary, Informatica is a good product that is very difficult to learn but once you learn it, it's very easy to use. It is a product that I can recommend using.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Informatica PowerCenter is a very good ETL tool. 

The solution's commercial cost is very high. Other open-source tools can do the tool's functions for free. The world is moving to the cloud, but the solution hasn't updated its drivers. I presume that its downfall will start soon. The tool is trying to cross-sell or upsell without helping customers derive benefits from the existing products. They have multiple tools and licenses. It is better to bring the smaller tools in one umbrella. 

Informatica PowerCenter's technical support varies. 

Neutral

I rate the solution's pricing a four out of ten. The price is very high, and it doesn't understand the market now. 

I rate Informatica PowerCenter a six out of ten. 

We are using Informatica PowerCenter to process the data of the files in the landing zone. These files contain a huge amount of data, and Informatica PowerCenter is the source for us to push the data to Azure Synapse. We are using its latest version.

Using Informatica PowerCenter, we can create workflows, tasks, and more. Performance is improved while developing ETL solutions and mappings can be done easily because of the UI features.

Informatica PowerCenter is very good for integrating a huge amount of data in a very short duration, such as a minute.

It is also very easy to use. After you provide the source and the target, mappings are automatically done, which makes it easy to use for the development team.

Its scalability can be improved. It is not scalable.

I have been using this solution for one year.

We have not experienced any technical challenges with this solution.

It is not scalable. Currently, we have three users of this solution.

We have not experienced any technical challenges with this solution.

Positive

I have used the Microsoft Business intelligence for developing SSIS packages for ETL development and Azure has more advantages where ETL development reporting and analysis can be done in a single  environment using synapse analytics 

There is no installation. After they provide the URL, you just log in. You just need the server details, and you can just log in with your Windows credentials.

Our client has purchased the license, and we are using it.

I've only used Informatica PowerCenter.

I would recommend this solution to others. I would rate Informatica PowerCenter an eight out of ten.

We use this solution for ETL and data transformation and we are customers of Informatica. 

This is an old and reliable product. I like the visual tool for data mapping and the workflow manager.

I think the UI could be improved, it's a little outdated. Configuration is  complicated and could be simplified; it requires experience, and not many people have that. 

I've been using this solution for one month. 

Our data engineers are dealing with big data and large files which Informatica is capable of dealing with.

I know that support is available but I've never contacted Informatica. I go to the documentation supply tool to solve any issues.

The initial setup is dependent on the requirements of an organization. Sometimes it's more complicated. It requires and administrator who does everything, and eventually testers are brought in for specific workflows. Each environment requires a different deployment. Maintenance is carried out in-house. 

PowerCenter requires some discipline in terms of the implementation process, and because it is dealing with databases, there are several layers of protection and authorization. 

Informatica PowerCenter is outdated and would benefit from modernization. They should have a very good migration strategy from Informatica PowerCenter to AACF. Informatica PowerCenter there is no point in using it, you have to use a cloud version.

I have been using Informatica PowerCenter for approximately 17 years.

The technical support for Informatica PowerCenter is good.

I rate the support from Informatica PowerCenter a four out of five.

I would not recommend anyone use this solution.

I rate Informatica PowerCenter a one out of ten.

We are using Informatica PowerCenter for data integration in a health insurance company.

The most valuable aspects of Informatica PowerCenter are the many features, ease of use, and user-friendliness.

The performance of Informatica PowerCenter could improve.

I have been using Informatica PowerCenter for approximately five years.

Informatica PowerCenter is a stable solution.

I have found Informatica PowerCenter to be scalable.

I have not used the technical support from Informatica PowerCenter.

We have used Data Quality, EDC, Axon, and Metadata Manager.

The initial installation of Informatica PowerCenter was straightforward. The amount of time it takes for the process depends on the deployment site, and how many maps, workflows, and tables there are.

The time it took used for the deployment was approximately two hours.

For the implementation of Informatica PowerCenter, we used one or two developers and one person from the DBA team.

I did not evaluate other options.

I rate Informatica PowerCenter an eight out of ten.

PowerCenter is the market leader, so more organizations use it than other tools. It's a feature-rich solution, so that's why it's at the top of the market.

PowerCenter has three clients. I wish they would consolidate everything into one GUI, not three. Also, we had a persistent issue with the Informatica Developer tool but it was solved when we migrated to the newest one. 

We've been using PowerCenter for about three years.

I think PowerCenter is stable. Organizations that try Informatica stick with it for a long time. No one uses Informatica and quickly switches to something else. It has been the leader in the market for many years.

Any feature that PowerCenter doesn't provide can be found in IDQ. IDQ covers any missing options, so I think it's PowerCenter's scalability is fine.

There were a few times when Informatica support took a while to solve the issues, but they always fixed the problem in the end. There was only one ticket that took a long time to solve. I rate their support eight out of 10. 

I rate PowerCenter eight out of 10 for ease of deployment. 

I rate Informatica PowerCenter eight out of 10. It provides everything I need. Nothing is missing. PowerCenter is a good tool for on-premise databases. If you're going to implement PowerCenter, you need to think about your requirements to determine what tools to use.

For example, I need the repository to auto-refresh. When I make changes to a project, workflow, mapping, or session, I want everything to refresh automatically. Otherwise, you must disconnect from the repository and reconnect for the changes you made to be reflected in your project.

I have worked with Informatica PowerCenter in different companies for different projects.

We use Informatica PowerCenter for ETL. We need it for our data integration project.

It's quite suitable for our needs.

It's a complete package, which is why we use this solution.

We have not had any issues with this solution.

There is some room for improvement in terms of pricing.

I have been working with Informatica PowerCenter for four years.

Informatica PowerCenter is a stable solution.

Informatica PowerCenter is a scalable product.

We haven't encountered any problems that would require assistance from the technical support team.

We did however contact technical support about pricing for the implementation of the site.

I have been working on ODI (Oracle Data Integrator), but we prefer Informatica.

The initial setup is quite easy. It is easy to handle and debug as well.

Normally, it doesn't take long, but it depends on the issues we face.

I was unable to locate any pricing information on the website. I made an appointment to meet with a representative through the internet.

According to what I've heard and read on various blogs, it's quite expensive when compared to similar competitive products.

Based on what I've read, I believe the price can be customized.

There are several products, but we recommend using this solution.

I would rate Informatica PowerCenter an eight out of ten.