Informatica PowerCenter Reviews

Our primary use case is to collect data from different sources and to build it for the house or data hub, or to fill already built-in appliances like Cloudera and Teradata. 

It has helped us meet our monetization needs. 

Real time is amazing. If you have AI use cases, you can predict if it's a threat or if it's a positive or negative transaction. You can use real time with PowerExchange to write data directly to Kafka, to consume, write, or parse data using an AI algorithm to detect if the data is positive or negative and to define what use cases you want. 

It would be nice to move from Windows tools (like Developer, Designer, or Manager) and have everything in one place like DATAQ developer, which is eclipse-based and user-friendly. 

CDC needs more improvement. It's stable and has good features, but it's only easy to develop if you are familiar with Linux. 

Sometimes a new monitor will not be accurate in logging or you'll open a log and get a misleading error message. The connection parameter is sometimes inaccurate, or the parameter will not load. Proactive Monitoring doesn't work very well with all of the Informatica processes. The latest version came out five years ago and there has been no enhancement since then. It doesn't make sense for a product to be ranked number one but have no enhancements. The product hangs and you can lose control for several hours. It works, but it hangs. 

I have been using PowerCenter and PowerExchange for around 7 to 8 years. 

It's stable and we rarely have any issues. During the setup, when developers tried to connect, there were some issues, but it ran smoothly once it was configured and fixed. Sometimes, there is conflict between servers (like Analytics, Data Quality, or PowerCenter) and we have problems with loading libraries.

It's easy to scale, but it has a limit. For high availability or for service on the grid, it's okay, but it has a limit. If we had the option to enable scalability based on big data architecture, like Adobe or MongoDB, it would be easier. In Enterprise Data Catalog (EDC), you can extend them by adding nodes to the cluster, but currently, to maintain scalability in both centers, you'll add a node, join the domain after that to distribute work, but fortunately, this works well. We also got a complaint, when adding a node, that the session failed without recovery. 

For technical support, there are levels. The first level of support is called TechAccess and it's between Informatica and other vendors. TechAccess takes time and their response is often delayed. After that, we escalate and go to the Informatica level of support. Once we reach them, they proceed to explain the solution. 

We've tried SSIS and DataStage, but we prefer PowerCenter for stability and monitoring. 

The set-up was simple and I did it myself. If you try it one time, it'll be easy the next time. The one product that does need improvement in installation is Enterprise Data Catalog, EDC. It's very difficult and all my colleagues hate communicating with and installing EDC.

I implemented it myself and with my team. We have expertise, so there was no need to engage Informatica Professional Services. 

The pricing is a little expensive, but in the same range as IBM and other competitors. There is not a big difference in pricing between its main competition. The pricing is mostly the same between other vendors. 

PowerCenter is good for large enterprises and good for ETL purposes, but not for ELT. If you need to go with ELT, Informatica has another package called Data Streaming that's more stable and recommended for a larger environment. 

I would rate Informatica an eight out of ten. 

PowerCenter has yet to announce additional features. The face that it has not made improvements is fine, as it is very easy to integrate. We are in touch with the vendors of products other than Informatica PowerCenter. 

The reason I chose to rate the solution as a nine out of ten is because there is a need to buy a separate license if one wishes to connect with some kind of SAP system, such as SalesForce. 

I've been using Informatica PowerCenter for more than 16 years.

The technical support is excellent.

The initial setup is easy.

The price is mostly reasonable. 

I am satisfied with the solution. 

I rate Informatica PowerCenter as a nine out of ten. 

With this product, we managed to implement all of our ETL, including those with many sources, and complex transformations.

With this product we can centralize all our ETL needs in one technology. One unique team with the right expertise is responsible for developing, implementing, and tuning it. We eliminated the variety of different solutions and different technologies. This means that the knowledge and skills are not spread-out.

One area for improvement is with huge ETLs, where the product has to extract large amounts of information. That's because some sources wait for others inside the map to finish, and only afterwards do they continue extracting data from other sources in the database.

I've used it for six years.

No issues encountered.

No, but after some errors, the cache directory, where we keep the temp files, fills up, and you have to drop them in manually or have a process to delete unused files periodically.

A fast SSD disk is needed for better performance to locate the temp files.

3/10.

3/10.

We previously used Oracle Warehouse Builder. We switched because Warehouse Builder generated PL/SQL code and the transformation resided inside the database. With PWC, the transformation is on a different server.

The initial setup was complex. There were many performance problems and some migrations took a long time to be implemented. After many meetings with different experts both problems were solved.

We used a vendor team, who were 4/10.

We also looked at ODI (Oracle data integration).

Be persistent in trying to implement all kinds of transformations with Power Center, you will be happy with the final result.

I like the completeness of the way I can build ETL workflows. It's not one feature that stands out. Rather, it's the way everything is working together.

On the matter of data lineage and data catalog and metadata, in particular, several new developments are embedded as options you could use or could buy. The modular structure is very helpful.

What is not that clear, is the usability in the cloud, for example. That's a little bit fuzzy.

The reputation of Informatica is that it is expensive. There are some things which could improve for the customer so that they have the perception that they get more for their money.

I would say that the transparency towards the cloud is a big area for improvement. For example, Microsoft and Oracle, make it easy since they create a cloud and then integrate all the stuff that way that you always have the possibility to work to optimize with. Informatica is a little bit different.  

On-premise should not be eradicated.

I've used the solution for 20 years. 

The solution is expensive.

I'm a developer and architect. I'm not reselling the product.

I'd rate the product eight out of ten.

Our primary use cases of PowerCenter are database regulatory reporting cases. Both sides are suitable for us to net trace metadata and it's easy to develop or hedge, after production as well. It's also easy to understand the steps or ETL. 

I'm working with the latest update, and it's deployed on-prem. 

One of the most valuable features for us is the metadata repository because it can easily understand the lineage of first target mapping. My company and I also find Informatica really easy to use—when a consultant joins our company, in just a few days to a few weeks, they can understand how to use it—so we prefer to use this ETL tool. 

PowerCenter could be improved by having more big data components. Normally, we prefer Informatica as a relational database, but nowadays, companies are trying to understand and use big data components. I think it would be useful if we had more chances to create a hub ecosystem because customers try to use some data integration tasks by SQL, Spark and Spark codes, and Scala, but at the end of the day, the company will understand that we need to trace all the steps. An ETL tool is a must for that company, if we're talking about the regulated industries like finance, telcos, etc. If Informatica's biggest ecosystems feature were okay, I would prefer to use it. 

I have been working with PowerCenter for more than seven years. 

The stability and performance of PowerCenter are good. 

The scalability is fair enough. 

PowerCenter is suitable for large companies. The pricing could be an issue for some companies who want to implement and develop with PowerCenter.

I haven't been in touch with technical support in the last few years, but before that, I contacted them many times. I remember that when we were using PDW, the previous version of Microsoft APS, we contacted Informatica support teams a few times to handle connection problems with the driver of PDW, and they solved it. I was satisfied with the support. 

The initial setup of PowerCenter is a simple process. The first development took just a week—a few days is enough. 

We provide implementation services to customers. We are a consultant company, so we use it for our customers on the customer's side, but we don't have a business relationship with Informatica. 

Compared to other tools, I think PowerCenter is a bit expensive. When I compare it to Oracle, if you want to use Oracle databases, you can easily get an ODI tool, so it's easier to handle. Informatica is a standalone tool—it's an independent company—and there are no databases around them, so it's quite expensive to use. 

Generally, large companies use PowerCenter because of the price. If companies want to expand their usage areas, they try to consider if it's easy to implement and easy to understand the pricing. I think the pricing is a barrier for Informatica. 

I rate PowerCenter a nine out of ten. To those looking into implementing PowerCenter, I would advise evaluating whether they have a large company. If their first criteria is not pricing, I totally recommend Informatica as their first ETL tool, but if there are pricing, performance and support, etc. requirements, maybe they can evaluate ODI and Informatica together. If you have an Oracle ecosystem, I think you can get Oracle or ODI cheaper than Informatica, but if you don't, I think Informatica could be a leading option. It depends on what the customer has. 

This product is primarily used with an Oracle product called OBI EE, Oracle Business Intelligence. It is used for integration and data visualization.

This is the best tool that we have.

The most valuable features are the metadata repository and the data warehouse application console.

The only problem with this product is the level of complexity with the number of levels of transformation that you have to go through. I would say that's the biggest issue.

We have been working with Informatica PowerCenter for about seven years.

I think that PowerCenter is pretty stable.

We have three different instances of this running. There is one for development, one for pre-production, and one for production. As far as having to scale linearly, we haven't had the need by putting additional nodes for high availability or load balancing. It's not something that we've necessarily needed. We have not scaled up, either. So, no vertical and no horizontal scaling. It was pretty much used out of the box.

We have two people who are using this solution and they are developers.

Oracle came in and they implemented a lot of the functionality that we needed. Beyond what we received from Oracle, there were very few times where we needed support.

Most of the time, the only thing we needed technical support was with Oracle patches and we ran into a problem, something broke.

Initially, we were doing a custom PL/SQL ETL type of procedure.

We just decided to go to an automated tool, something that was more visual.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. I don't think that there were any problems with it.

We had a lot of assistance from Oracle and the implementation took less than a week.

It's much more expensive, almost three times more expensive than most other solutions.

Oracle put Informatica into their product line. They use Informatica fo do the integrations.

The one benefit is that you reduce your administrative overhead by implementing this tool, and you get more functionality out of it versus most other tools. 

With a lot of other tools, you have to do a lot of hacking in order to get things to work properly for you, whereas with Informatica, you have a lot of flexibility.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Our primary use case for this solution is at a Russian bank.

The goal was to integrate DWH with a banking core system that used Pervasive SQL 2000 DB. The bank as our client in the field of Data Warehousing asked us to extract data from their core banking system and build a Data Mart for preparation of regulatory reports.

Informatica PowerCenter moved forward the technology level of ETL-process management of the bank with visualization and standardization of ETL development instead of a huge volume of scripting used previously. Moreover, the task of integration of systems based on different technology platforms was successfully solved.

The most complex task, in this case, was to read and transform BLOB data, and Java transformation in Informatica Power Center was a great solution. The second task that was solved with Java transformation was the correct transformation of the Amount field (each amount in PSQL 2000 is stored in three different fields). These tasks were solved by using PSQL 2000 Java SDK library imported to Informatica PowerCenter Java Transformation.

I hope that the next release of this solution will:

• Work with HADOOP and other BigData solutions.
• Have an ability to compile code to run it quicker.
• Include new features for parallel job execution.
• Include more instruments for LOGs analysis, interpretation, and job corrections.

It works stably but needs a dedicated professional admin in the project team.

It's scalable and can be supplemented by a Data Quality solution.

We used the vendor's distant support and the expertise was excellent.

As we are a consulting and data management company, the instruments we have to use during the project are chosen by our customers.

The initial setup of this solution was straightforward.

We implemented this solution at the customer's site as consultants. 

We are also using IBM DataStage, Oracle Data Integrator, SAP Data Services. From project to project it's up to the customer.

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.