CData DBAmp vs. dbt

Well suited as an inexpensive tool as "middleware" between your on-prem or hosted SQL Server. Not sure how well it will translate to cloud-based SQL as a platform (Azure SQL) as it relies on linked servers. This tool only applies to Salesforce CRM - not Marketing Cloud. For writing back to Salesforce we did run into Salesforce resource limitations when extensive triggers existed on the objects.

Incentivized

dbt (Data Build Tool) is best suited for doing the data transformation. dbt is just a transformation tool and it is not suitable for building a data pipeline which requires extraction of data and loading. dbt is well suited for SQL based transformation logic and it is less appropriate when transformation logic requires python.

Incentivized

• Connects & Links to Salesforce CRM databases - including custom objects.
• Built in procedures to create copies of the database on SQL Server.
• Built in procedures to Add, Update, and Delete data within Salesforce CRM.
• Great Technical Support.

Incentivized

• user experience makes it easy to work with SQL and version control
• customer success team and the dbt (data build tool) community help establish best practices
• thorough and clear documentation

• Because it uses Linked Servers, not sure how this will work in Azure SQL.
• Replicated tables are based on user security - this means you have to pay for a license to set this up.
• There is no built-in function to skip tables or fields on secured tables. This has to be done on the CRM side for fields and we built a function to skip tables in the replication logic.

Incentivized

• Slow load times of the dbt cloud environment (they're working on it via a new UI though)
• More out-of-the-box solutions for managing procedures, functions, etc would be nice to have, but honestly, it's pretty easy to figure out how to adapt dbt macros

Incentivized

dbt is very easy to use. Basically if you can write SQL, you will be able to use dbt to get what you need done. Of course more advanced users with more technical skills can do more things.

Incentivized

Matillion is graphical versus dbt, which is SQL code-based (that, of course, is a matter of personal preference and not an objective advantage). The integrated testing, documentation generation, lineage, etc., were additional criteria that led us to choose dbt.

Incentivized

• Enabled automated marketing segments which enabled automated email series.
• Helped us solicit donations for the right amount at the right time.
• Helped us take on new marketing and fundraising campaigns without adding staff.

Incentivized

• In 3 months we re-wrote the data warehouse (15-20 sources) in dbt with 3 developers.
• We are using it continually for the past year with no issues.
• Sorry, I don't have ROI numbers but the impact was huge.

Incentivized