CData's Sync is a data pipeline tool able to connect data sources to the user's database or data warehouse, supporting at present over 200 possible sources, and a range of destinations (e.g. Snowflake, S3, Redshift), connecting on-premise or SaaS sources and destinations.
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Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud
Score 7.0 out of 10
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The Informatica® Intelligent Data Management Cloud™ (IDMC) is designed to help businesses efficiently handle the complex challenges of dispersed and fragmented data to innovate with their data on virtually any platform, any cloud, multi-cloud and multi-hybrid.
Evidently, CData Sync is an excellent middleware tool that is perfect for syncing data between systems. It is especially suitable and works well on SQL servers, DB2, MySQL, and Snowflake, and some of their brothering domains. However, it is a limitation in working with Sage 50 API. But if it is extracted with ODBC, it works well.
Informatica Cloud is an excellent tool for freeing up trapped data in your internal systems and exporting it into a cloud data warehouse or SQL container. Especially if you have any internal SQL query generators that allow you to copy and paste into the Source setup. For example, we use Business Objects internally, and you can build out the query you need inside the firewall with that, then paste it into the query within Informatica Cloud while establishing the Source connection. This way you are not writing all your source parameters by hand, cutting new jobs setup time by 50%. Where Cloud will not suit you well is if you need significant visibility to the health of the system from a tracking, monitoring or error handling standpoint. Cloud will tell you it failed, maybe give you an example error, but has no further troubleshooting or diagnostic assistance to offer.
Informatica Cloud is a great tool for automating data imports. Raw data files can be scheduled to run at designated times, and using pre-built mappings ensures that the data goes into the system accurately each time.
It is also a great tool for converting raw data into specific formatting. For example, configuring the mapping so that the first letter of a first, middle or last name is always capitalized.
Additionally, Informatica Cloud has a built-in field-matching tool so that records that already exist are updated rather than having duplicates created.
Although efficient for SQL servers and MySQL, as well as Snowflake. It is not strong for other database engines, and an upgrade on this would do a lot.
The installation process is manual as opposed to the cloud installation it should be.
A feature of syncing auto increment ID key, that will help in existing data management.
I've never had trouble getting into contact with Informatica's support for technical help. I give it a nine because it does pretty well for mid to enterprise-scale workflows.
Tableau is another similar software tool, unlike CData Sync, rather transforms data into actionable insights. While CData Sync works with automation, Tableau uses a drag box on its AVA, which in turn slows the work speed on the syncing of data. Over the years, I enjoyed the friendly and customizable option of CData Sync over Tableau's.
Having used SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) in the past, Informatica Cloud was a huge-step up in functionality, usability and performance. Hands-down, Informatica Cloud is a much more robust product overall. While SSIS is well-suited for specific instances (i.e. SQL Server-specific implementations), Informatica Cloud is a much better product as an overall integration/transformation tool.
Getting data out of various systems such as Salesforce.com or FTP and consolidating it into tables in one central database.
Having the ability to run data transformation tasks (the equivalent of batch jobs in SF or stored procedures in SQL) on a schedule without consuming those resources on the target or source systems.
