Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) Reviews

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.

The most common use of this solution is to connect to the database source and database target. Data in the repository constructs the mapping or programs to form the data into the target using the CAEM knowledge model. I'm a data warehouse analyst. 

The CAEM is very useful, particularly in its modularity and portability. We can also use real-time transformation to build and load data. It works more quickly than other ELTs and it's very simple and modular. It can be used for all integrations, not only AIT or ELT.

Reverse engineering is complicated when reversing from the database to the repository. It's pretty challenging to manage.

I've been using this solution for four years. 

The solution is stable. 

The solution is scalable.

To date, we haven't needed customer support. 

The initial deployment is very simple and we carried out the implementation in-house.

I rate this solution nine out of 10. 

We have been using Oracle Data Integrator for populating Financial Services Data Warehouse. Data extraction is done into a staging area from different source systems and then this data is validated and certain quality checks have been performed here. We used Oracle Data Integrator data quality checks builtin capability to perform these different data quality checks. Then data is consolidated and transformed into the staging area and finally gets landed into the data warehouse. I also used this for generating data hand-offs for other applications.

Oracle Data Integrator offers a declarative style ETL development, where you mainly use pre-built knowledge modules for doing integration tasks. As a developer, you don't need to focus on how part of the integration, you only focus on what to do. You just need to configure certain components as per your requirements and underlying execution plan and code is generated for you. For every technology there are knowledge modules available, the best optimal code is generated which eventually gets executed on database level. Our developers created best performing ETLs with very little effort leveraging this feature.

There are number of valuable features in this tool: 

• Declarative design 
• Client-server architecture model.
• Very good user access model
• Pre-built user profiles defined that give you control for access management
• Very good logging and execution logs feature which gives you complete detail of executions and you can query these in a different manner.

All ETL code is stored in repositories in underlying database schemas. The number of users can access and work on the same solution using a client tool. So distributed teams can work on this tool in an efficient manner. 

There are certain things where it can be improved. Initial solution setup seems a bit complex at the start, it should be improved because it becomes bit tough for a novice to get started on this. Sometimes error description is not helpful to understand the problem it gives some generic type of errors which are at times not that helpful to understand the underlying root cause of the issue. 

Error descriptions should be easy and specific to actual problems rather than generic lengthy descriptions. Also, another main feature that should be readily available is that there should be a source component available that can extract data from a source based on the custom query rather than giving a source data store only in the mapping. 

I have been using Oracle Data Integrator for five years. 

Good.

It's very good.

Whenever we needed Oracle Technical Support, we're able to get it in timely fashion and most of the time has been good to help in resolving the problems.

I didn't switch any tool. I'm a professional developer and my tool selection is based on client requirements. I've used both SSIS and ODI for different clients.

The initial setup is a bit complex as it needs some repo schema setup and agent setup.

We did it at our own.

Excellent.

ODI has bit on higher end in setup and pricing but it has more power as well. So it depends on your use. 

No, my selection was based on client's choice.

I think different tools have their own pros and cons, so it all depends on your overall needs.

The biggest feature for ODI is the fact that it uses the power of the source or target database to actually perform the ETL processing. So a typical data integration tool might have its own ETL engine, and that would be an additional server, additional costs, something else you have to maintain. ODI actually has the ability to create and generate code that runs potentially on your Oracle database, or even on a big data target, on Hadoop or somewhere like that. So, you have that flexibility, and you don't have to have that additional cost in maintenance.

A couple other additional benefits of Oracle Data Integrator would be the use of what's called a knowledge module. So this is like a code template that uses the metadata that you have available within ODI, and within your mapping, to generate that code, that then can be executed, like I said before, on the source or target system. The code will be generated in the native format of that database or that technology. So, again, you have sort of a hands-off.

These knowledge modules are built in. They can be developed and modified. So, the biggest thing, I always think, with ODI is, it fits around your data warehouse needs. Rather than taking your production, or your business, and trying to make it fit a tool, you do the opposite. You make the tool fit your business.

One thing that is included, and it's going to improve, is the integration with a configuration management tool. Right now, they integrate with Subversion. And we know in the future, there's going to be more tools implemented there for configuration management and some new features there. So right now, it's kind of one of those features that, it's been released, but it's sort of a beta version of that feature where a lot more functionality will be coming down the line.

So ODI is actually quite a stable product. As a testament to the product team that develops it, they're not going to release something that is extremely buggy or things like that. So, I do see that often they will release features that are highly anticipated and highly sought after. And they might release them a little early. So there's definitely patching that comes into play there, to kind of get the full solution there.

As far as stability, the Oracle Data Integrator has agents that run either in WebLogic, as a Java deployment there, or on a server as a Java agent, or a Java deployment. As long as a client has had the product implemented, with no issues there. So that's kind of the key there, you don't want to have those agents have a blip or any issues.

So as far as scalability of Oracle Data Integrator, from the high availability standpoint, if you use WebLogic for your agent, you can use the clustering capability within WebLogic to create multiple nodes on different WebLogic servers. And then run your agent through that process there. So if something fails, if the main agent fails, it can fail over to the secondary agent or, again, another agent in your cluster.

I'd probably put them up there around an eight, yeah. Being a system integrator of Oracle products, typically I'm on behalf of a client. So oftentimes it depends on who your client is and what their level of support is, as far as response and how things go. But I've always had great response with those guys.

A lot of the projects I've worked on recently are Oracle VM apps projects. So, it's the folks that are in the Informatica version of VI apps, and looking at moving to the latest and greatest, which has Oracle Data Integrator behind the scenes. I'm not saying they're actually talking about using Informatica, they're just, that's what they have. And they're looking to migrate. Quite often where we come into play, ODI is typically chosen at that point. And then they call us in to help with it.

It's not too difficult. It's tough to look at it from the perspective of someone who hasn't been doing it for a while. And oftentimes, that's what you need to kind of make that determination. But as far as just getting up and running, you can get it installed, configure an agent, quite quickly. And then the next step would really be getting ready to build a mapping. And they actually introduced in the most recent release, or maybe even when 12C came out, they introduced a feature that would basically get everything, topology, the models, all the data stores, everything, ready to go for you, just in one simple wizard. And then you could actually start building mappings quickly.

A lot of it is when they have home-grown ETL processes. So they'll manually script their ETL code. It's basically something that's difficult to maintain. So we talk about how we can use ODI to keep everything centralized. And even if we're not using ODI to actually build out mappings within the product, we might still be able to run that PL SQL or whatever it is, the script for ETL, from within ODI.

So we still have everything consolidated and contained and then the other approach, or reason for moving to ODI, would be the need to get off of that middle tier integration server. That we don't need with ODI.

As far as why consider Oracle Data Integrator, I think the big thing is the ability to consolidate all of your ETL into one place. Whether it's an Oracle to Oracle, source to target load, or even Oracle to Hadoop, or anything in between. SQL Server, MySQL, XML. ODI can basically talk to all of those different technologies. From a consolidation of all of your data warehouse or your data integration, if you will. And also, just use the same approach for mapping and creating processes for all of those different types of solutions. You have everything logically defined. And so when you're developing, it actually doesn't look any different than an Oracle source, and target doesn't look any different than a Hadoop source and target.

So I would rate ODI a nine. And that's really because, just looking across the other ETL tools, so I mentioned Informatica, there's a lot of other ones out there. I've seen what ODI does from a sort of a declarative design approach, and the push-down of work to the source and target. I've seen that replicated in other tools that have come out after Oracle Data Integrator. That's a big key.

It puts it kind of at the top, if you're going to look at a scale across all of the ETL tools. The other aspect to that rating is how they're integrating a lot of the big data technologies now. And it's a big deal from an Oracle standpoint, it's kind of how things are going. And it also just makes sense to, again, keep everything consolidated in one place. You already have an investment in ODI, it makes sense to try to drive some of your other big data type Hadoop loads or whatever it may be from that same place.

ODI is integrated with Hyperion Planning, Essbase and other Oracle products. Data transfer is also easy since ODI already knows the metadata of these applications between the different databases. There is also ease of development in terms of the interface and customization with scripts, as well as data lineage and tracking, which are advantages to us.

We hadn’t upgraded in a long time, so all of our business users were creating their own solutions with spreadsheets, for example. We realized we were behind and purchased a whole stack of Oracle products that have simplified the way we move and track data. The accountants enjoy being able to reconcile where the data is and how it is changing. That’s the reason we bought the tool.

It would be nice to improve reconciliation. Additionally, better external authentication support through Microsoft Active Directory would be useful. Right now, it doesn’t support this very well. You have to buy Oracle’s special product instead.

When you start integrating products, it's not that stable. For example, if you upgrade other applications, like Hyperion Planning, it's going to break ODI.

I still need to learn a bit more about scalability in ODI, but I don't think you can scale it like DataStage.

Technical support for ODI has been awful, but I think it differs by product because support for OFSAA is wonderful. When I gave tech support a problem, the answer I got was “Oh. Well, keep testing.”

Initial setup for version 11.1.1.7 of ODI was a little difficult, but installing 12c was really easy.

I haven’t checkout out other solutions, so I don’t know where it scales, but from a developer’s standpoint, I’d give the product a seven or an eight. On infrastructure, I’d bring it down to a five.

The main features we use and has helped us to implement our ETL process are

• Data transformation
• In memory engine
• KM customization
• User friendly GUI
• Versioning
• Big Data support
• Security support
• Easy deployment
• Reusable Mapping
• Multiple Target Load
• ELT Architecture
• Application Server support for other vendor servers such as IBM Websphere

The features that we have applied to our project has helped us reduce manual effort and increased our scalability and growth. I worked on multiple domains where requirements were adversely different. We used many ODI features to enhanced our data transformation capability.

I am personally satisfied with current version, however, I think they should be able to provide a feature where we can easily use a configuration tool for TFS, GIT etc. This is essential for code management.

I've been using it for six years.

We have had no issues with the deployment.

There have been no performance issues.

It's been able to scale for our needs.

9/10

8/10

I have not used any other product. However, I have seen other ETL tools in use such as BODS, SOA, and Informatica and I did not like them as I did not that they were user friendly.

It was straightforward. I used an application server for the initial setup and I did not find any challenges.

We performed an in-house one. If you have a technical team for ODI, then they can easily perform any implementation. If not, then you should have the vendor perform your implementation.

10/10

It is not as costly as other ETL tools.

You should use Oracle Data Integrator for your data transformation, or at the very least give it a try.

Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) integrates with the cloud, but the 12C version only can be integrated with the cloud. The best part of the ODI is, it does not have its own ETL engine of its own, it utilizes the database engine itself.

We use ODI for data integration only, such as extraction, transformation, and loading of data from different sources into one particular database. Additionally, we use ODI for our data warehouse.

ODI's most valuable features are it utilizes the database engine and is very lightweight.

ODI's ability to connect multiple types of database environments from a particular server, place, or system is beneficial. I can connect to many databases, such as Dev, UAT, production, or user acceptance test databases. All together in only one place. It's all about changing the context in that particular application. The moment you change the context, the ODI will start processing the data from different environments altogether.

ODI could improve by being more user-friendly. Informatica, which is also an ETL tool, similar to ODI, but Informatica is very user-friendly, easy to use, and simple to integrate, compared to ODI. ODI has many features, put them all together, and sometimes we get confused about which ones to use, which ones not to use.

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

The stability of Oracle Data Integrator is very good.

ODI is scalable, it is a matter of your configuration. If you configure the tools properly it is scalable.

The solution can be used for small to large enterprises.

I have been satisfied with the technical support.

I have used other solutions previously.

ODI has one of the easiest implementations out of all the others for a database.

I would recommend using ODI if we are using an Oracle Database as your data warehouse, or as your primary database only. If not then I wouldn't recommend ODI to be used. 

I have seen the newer cloud version and I think it is more user-friendly than the older versions.

I rate  Oracle Data Integrator an eight out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for digital health and sometimes automation tasks.

The integration of the solution with Oracle is very good. It's nice and easy.

The scalability is great. It's one of the reasons we chose the solution.

The stability is okay.

We found the implementation to be quick and easy.

The resource management aspect of the solution could be improved.

The migration process could be easier.

Technical support could be better. They're okay, however, their service could improve a bit.

The solution could be more reliable.

I've been dealing with the solution for around four years at this point.

The stability of the solution is pretty good. It doesn't crash or freeze on us. We don't have any bugs or glitches. 

We have about 20 people using the solution within our organization. They use it on a daily basis.

We deployed with scalability in mind. We've found it to be quite effective.

We've contacted technical support in the past. They're okay in terms of the service we provide. I would rate them seven out of ten overall. They could be a bit better.

We did previously use a variety of different solutions. So far, this product has been the best option for our organization. It has more features and integration capabilities. It's a bit more complex than other options.

The initial setup of the solution is not complex. It's very straightforward. We found it to be easy.

For simple mapping, deployment only takes about half an hour.

We handle the maintenance ourselves. Occasionally, we may reach out to Oracle for certain tasks, however, largely, we deal with everything maintenance related internally.

We did not need the help of a vendor or integrator. We did do everything on our own.

The solution isn't the most expensive, nor is it the cheapest option. In terms of pricing, it sits somewhere in the middle. Everything is covered under one license. You don't have to buy any add-ons.

We're simply an Oracle customer. We don't have a business relationship with the company.

There's no specific version of the solution that we use.

I wouldn't recommend any other services above Oracle.

Overall, I would rate the solution eight out of ten.