Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) Reviews

Very large and complexes environments implementation, 10000+ users with 24x7 global operation and multiple EPM tools working in sync.

For the EPM environment, the ODI is the key to transforming a good project into a great project. With ODI, we can make all the EPM tools work together as one and we can create a puzzle that will increase the performance and capability of all EPM tools. We can have an integrated environment and decrease the close time from two days to one hour.

It's the best tool for data integration. It can do anything you want, but the only downside is that you need to know what you are doing. You can take 10 times longer to do the same thing if you don't know how to use the tool.

You have to know how to change the KM, how to use the dynamic coding, how to create dynamic models, and so on. In a lot of places, I see people using ODI wrongly, but the good thing about the tool is that isn't hard to fix common mistakes. With this you can improve performance, and in some cases, more than 10 times.

Right now, we have two very different GUIs - 11g and 12c. 11g is faster to develop than 12c as it takes more steps to do exactly the same as 11g, but you have a lot of things that you need to do yourself.

12c implemented some things for which you have to use some specialized code automatically, like parallel data load, but it is slower to develop. For me, the best thing would be to merge the GUI from 11g into the capabilities of 12c.

More than 12 years.

There were issues mainly because of a Java memory leak.

We have had no issues with scaling it for our needs.

The technical support for EPM is bad. I don't remember anytime that the service support helped me with something. The problem is bigger when you have an environment with more than one product like Hyperion Planning and ODI.

This happens because the products have different owners within Oracle and then different supports, and because of this, if you open a trouble ticket of loading data to planning and you say the words ODI, you'll be pushed around the two separate support teams indefinitely, even if your company has an Oracle support director just for you.

Neutral

The bigger the environment, the bigger the challenge is you need to face. Maybe one day Oracle will integrate all their tools. It'll be easier, and the good thing is that I saw a lot of improvements over the years.

All tools are expensive, but I think ODI is the most expensive since it depends on your sources and target databases. I think the best way to go is by doing packages and try to include free tools (if you buy Planning you have an ODI for BI licenses for free) or try to get discounts from your Oracle supplier. It's always good to explore what could happen if you get another tool or hardware together. Sometimes, you get more for less than if you get just one tool. Just be careful to not buy things that you won't use.

I'm a consultant and my only evaluation was on the database. I decided on Oracle because of the database and during my career, their other tools are starting to come naturally.

Because Oracle products are development frameworks, your final results are as good as the people that implemented it. Make sure that your implementation team is the best it could be, at least for the first implementation. If something is implemented incorrectly at the start, it'll cost you a lot more to fix than to build a new system from scratch. Sometimes it can be so badly designed that it is impossible to fix.

I've been working on implementations for 21 years and I have seen bad implementations everywhere. In fact, I have seen the same tools implemented in the same team by two different people, with one being a success and the other a failure. In the same company, one department says that the tool does not work for them and another says that the tool is the best. The only difference was the implementer. Make sure you get a good team to implement it. The tool has its flaws but most of time (99%) it is the implementer's fault that you have a bad or slow model.

We use the solution to collect information from all sixteen sites to create a data warehouse data lake at the head office, accessible to everyone.

The most valuable feature is Data movement.

If you have something like Cisco on top of it, you will have endless problems.

Also, the price and integration could be improved.

I have been using Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) for years.

The product is stable if you have a working site. It offers great flexibility.

I rate the solution’s stability a ten out of ten.

The solution’s scalability is good.

You have to allocate more CPUs to scale further.

We evaluated Informatica, and we went with Oracle because the client was an Oracle user.

The initial setup is simple. There are several things to check with ODI. Prerequisites include space, database memory, CPU allocation, and so forth.

Deployment was done in-house.

Oracle has a huge benefit.

If you use it on any VM, it's very expensive.

The knowledge module is reusable but needs to be more relevant. First, we create an ODS and data structures, such as a Snowflake or a Star schema.

We move data as quickly as possible while ensuring that we do not reprocess already moved data. Therefore, we only handle data that is newly created or modified.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten.

Flexibility, ease of customization, extensive features, ease of deployment, and the ability to access to all kinds of different source system technologies. No need for extra hardware for transformation step. Easy to learn & develop.

Now, ODI has Cloud Service which you can deploy your repositories to Oracle Data Integrator Cloud Service for you to use both on prem, Big Data and cloud environments.

Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) can support any type of databases that has a jdbc driver in a native way. I have accessed and retrieve data from an Ingress database. Big data connectors are implemented to ODI 11.1.1.7 (out-of-the-box) and upper version that support many well-known Big Data architecture.

Knowledge Module architecture helps you to build your data integration activities with less effort.

You can switch to source, staging area or target to improve your querying performance. If you have to do a join from different source systems, you can decide which data to move to where and figure out the place for best output.

Variables can help you to perform loops and conditional statements in packages for helping ETL

It helped me to reduce a slowly changing dimensions type 2 with the same output, from 22,000 seconds to 168 seconds.

Loaded 10.000+ files to a table from 1000+ different sources under 20 minutes with approximate 300GB of data per day.

They need to work on the multiuser development environment and include the ability to comply with different kinds of SDLCs.

I've been using it for more than 10 years, since Oracle acquired Sunopsis.

There were no issues with the deployment.

I've experienced no issues with performance. Since sky is the limit, you can do what you want to do within ODI in several ways.

It's been able to scale for our needs. ODI will fit your needs.

10. I generally create a service request per year and they are being solved within a week.

They're very efficient.

We switched because of ODIs impressive increasement in development productivity.

It was straightforward and very easy. Almost the same as setup>next> next>next.

In-house.

Worth every penny.

There are various options in licensing, either per seat or per target core count. It depends how you want to use it.

We also looked at Informatica Power Center, AbInitio, Business Objects Data Integrator (BODI), and SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS).

If you want a robust, flexible solution with no extra hardware that is easy to learn, then ODI is the right product for you. ODI is a tool, that can talk or learn how to talk, with any database or operating system in its own language. This is the power of ODI.

We are using the solution for ETL purposes for our data warehouse.

The product has an ELT approach. It is much faster than any other ETL.

The initial setup is a bit complex compared to other tools.

I have been using the solution for three to four years.

The tool’s stability is good. I rate the stability an eight out of ten. We need to do a lot of engineering to understand the ODI mappings, knowledge modules, and how to load them. We need to learn a lot of other things, too.

It is a native tool of Oracle. It has no problems with scalability and availability. We have around 12 to 14 users.

The support depends on the severity of the tickets raised. A P1 ticket might be resolved fast. P2 or P3 tickets take a long time. I rate the support for P1 an eight out of ten, but for P2 and P3 tickets, I rate support a five out of ten.

Positive

The deployment takes at least 30 minutes. The tool has a lot of prerequisites. If we don't have a consultant or expert to help with the deployment, we won’t be able to complete it within 30 minutes. It would take longer. We must install JDK and the OBIEE repository that contains ODI packets. The software setup is confusing. The installation can be done in-house if the SOP is clear with the prerequisites and steps to follow.

The solution is very expensive. If it is cheaper, more people can use it. Oracle licensing is complex to understand. We pay a yearly licensing fee.

Since the product is expensive, we are exploring other tools like Azure Data Factory to reduce costs.

People can use the tool if they don't have a limit on their budget. However, people generally have budget constraints. We need to understand the cost before we implement the product. Overall, I rate the solution a six out of ten.

I primarily use ODI as a tool for data integration and data warehousing.

ODI's best features are customization, integration with other versioning tools, and the ability to define new knowledge modules.

I've been using ODI for four years.

ODI is very stable.

ODI is scalable, depending on the architecture you use.

Oracle's technical support is pretty quick to respond, but it has several levels, so it can take some time for more complex problems to be solved. 

The initial setup is complex, especially if you also have to install a console. Deployment takes a day or two. 

We used an integrator.

I would give ODI a rating of nine out of ten.

We use the product to transfer data from one stage to another of the data layers. It helps move data from different layers, transform, manage, and put the proper timestamp on the managed data.

One significant area for improvement in legacy ETL products such as ODI and PowerCenter is the steep learning curve and the necessity for a highly skilled development team. We are trying to escape this to provide solutions to end customers more efficiently.

We have been using Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) for over ten years.

I rate the product stability as ten out of ten.

Given the new technologies and complexity, I rate the platform's scalability a five out of ten.

Oracle support services are not up to the mark.

Negative

We are working with PowerCenter from Informatica and StreamSets from SoftwareAG, now an IBM product. We also use Microsoft SSIS in some basic ways.

We have deployed ODI mainly on-premises, accessing some Oracle cloud databases through a VPN. We maintain and upgrade it.

I rate the platform pricing as five out of ten.

We have not evaluated any other product before, as ODI was already in place due to the project's age. We are now evaluating StreamSets to improve user experience and flexibility to scale-up/down according business needs and reduce dependence on highly skilled developers, providing a ready to go solution to functional teams.

The key feature of ODI that makes it most effective for handling large data volumes is its ELT (Extract, Load, Transform) solution. It loads data from the database and then transforms using its resources, which is helpful. It does not require building all the data into the container or the ETL server, which usually consumes more CPU. It uses the power of the database system efficiently.

We are mainly using Oracle products, and it's straightforward. Oracle products integrate very well, reducing the time consumed in transformation compared to other products.

I recommend the product depending on specific business requirements. It can be complex for new cloud integrations and more modern iterations. I don't recommend ODI for those users, especially since it has become a legacy product.

I rate it a six out of ten.

The use case involved integrating a GMI-specific solution, which was a customer requirement. We used the software provided by the customer for this purpose. However, within our organization, we consumed some of the services by using Oracle.

I will need to involve the integration team to elaborate on the features, as they can provide input. I work mostly on the functional-technical side. However, in Oracle Data Integrator, the governance, especially the service governance, is good. There is also a schedule-based data-pulling mechanism. The message-pulling mechanism in the solution is good, and we can define threshold limits on top of the services. For instance, if I publish some equipment gateway or email gateway, the end user can consume a specific number of services from the solution.

In our company, we haven't tried consuming services from IoT in our company yet, and I would like to know if the solution will support IoT services in the next release. Specifically, I'd like to see if the solution will support us in acquiring data from our databases.

I have been using Oracle Data Integrator for the past two years in a customer implementation process where the solution was required. Also, I have experience with the solution's commercial version. I am a solutions consultant.

Stability-wise, I rate this solution a seven out of ten.

In our organization, we have not checked whether Oracle Data Integrator is scalable, including whether it is vertically or horizontally scalable or can scale automatically. However, we can deploy and configure it. We have only worked with Oracle Data Integrator in one of the deployments. At the same time, we were involved with Pentaho Data Integration for the other deployments. To ensure the solution's maintenance, we require a staff of three technical experts, including an integration expert and an ESB expert.

We haven't had any experience with the solution's technical support team. Also, technical support-related affairs are taken care of by a different team.

We have used WSO2 Integration for a proof of concepts (POC) in our organization. We have also used Red Hat Fuse and Pentaho Data Integration. So, we have worked on these tools from an ESB point of view. Also, commercial ESBs like Oracle Enterprise. We primarily used Red Hat Fuse for APM and ACM, deployed specifically for one of our customers between 2015 and 2016. So, our recent experience is with Pentaho Data Integration and Hitachi Pentaho Data Integration.

The solution's initial setup is straightforward, especially compared to Mule, which our team has worked with before and found to be a bit more complex in terms of setup. Pentaho Data Integration and Hitachi Data Integration are also good.

Since the deployment of Oracle Data Integrator has already been done, the customer provides the platform or software. Another team is responsible for maintaining the solution while we have published some of its services. It takes around three months to deploy the solution.

Our company didn't have to pay for the license of the solution since our customer had already paid for it.

Based on the customer's requirement, I would recommend the solution to them. In our company, we have prior experience with ESBs. We can suggest multiple ESB options that are best suited to the customer's needs. Overall, I rate this solution an eight out of ten.

Our ODI usage is expensive and is mainly for the extraction transformation and loading (ETL) of data from multiple sources to a data warehouse.

The most valuable feature of ODI is the to use of the whole ETL to create a data lake.

We have been using Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) for approximately five years.

At this point in time, we are not satisfied with the stability. However, this is not because of the solution, but because of the deployment which was done in 2017, and the maintenance and upgrades that needed to be done, which were not done over time.

ODI is a scalability solution as long as you are keeping it up to date with all the upgrades and patching, you can scale it a lot.

We have approximately five engineers who direct users of ODI, and there is a great number who use the solution.

We used technical support and they are good.

We did not use a tool prior to ODI.

The initial setup of ODI was straightforward. The full implementation took us approximately two months because of our architecture, it was not the fault of the tool.

We used a third party to do the implementation of ODI.

We have approximately five engineers that do the maintenance and support the solution.

There is a standard license to use the solution but there are other costs in addition, such as hardware and operating system.

I rate the price of ODI a three out of ten.

My advice to other people implementing this solution would be it is good as long as the context of the systems that they are using it. For example, if they are using a lot of Oracle technologies, then it makes sense to have ODI, otherwise, there are other tools that could make more sense.

I rate ODI a seven out of ten.