Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud vs. Oracle Warehouse Builder

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.

Incentivized

If you plan to upgrade your databases to newer versions, you need to migrate your Oracle Warehouse Builder jobs to Oracle Data Integrator (fastest and easiest way) or an other ETL tool, because Oracle Warehouse Builder came to an end and does not support newer versions of databases as it is described in statement of direction. There will be no major releases of Oracle Warehouse Builder (latest
release is 11GR2 - 11.2.0.4), but bug resolving and minor releasing will continue.

Incentivized

• 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.

Incentivized

• Simplified user interface with all required ETL functions
• Flexible and Efficient

Incentivized

• The User Interface can be a bit difficult to get in initial stages.
• Error messages are hard to understand which sometimes takes a lot of time for the resolution
• Cannot Implement complex SQL queries which should be fixed in future release.

Incentivized

• No good learning material available.
• I didn't see a training course for it.
• It is not easy to learn.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

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.

Incentivized

I think that Oracle Warehouse Builder is easier to use the Oracle Data Integrator (ODI). The connections in Oracle Warehouse Builder (OWB) are easier to understand when troubleshooting. Anything that makes troubleshooting easier gets higher marks in my book. ODI wins in the heavy lifting and enterprise solution realm. ODI is much easier to implement at that level. The web interface that can be setup for business users to kick off scenarios is better than the interface that we can give access to in OWB.

Incentivized

• A positive impact is bringing more projects.
• 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.

Incentivized

• OWB allows you to quickly develop even complex ETLs thus saving lots of time for the developers to work on other things. I would say OWB is a very convenient and easy to use tool.

Incentivized