We performed a comparison between Informatica Powercenter and SSIS based on our users’ reviews in four categories. After reading all of the collected data, you can find our conclusion below.
Comparison Results: Informatica PowerCenter is a more advanced option if you can afford the higher price. However, SSIS scored better in terms of ease of deployment and service and support.
"It is really easy to set up and the interface is easy to use."
"StreamSets data drift feature gives us an alert upfront so we know that the data can be ingested. Whatever the schema or data type changes, it lands automatically into the data lake without any intervention from us, but then that information is crucial to fix for downstream pipelines, which process the data into models, like Tableau and Power BI models. This is actually very useful for us. We are already seeing benefits. Our pipelines used to break when there were data drift changes, then we needed to spend about a week fixing it. Right now, we are saving one to two weeks. Though, it depends on the complexity of the pipeline, we are definitely seeing a lot of time being saved."
"I have used Data Collector, Transformer, and Control Hub products from StreamSets. What I really like about these products is that they're very user-friendly. People who are not from a technological or core development background find it easy to get started and build data pipelines and connect to the databases. They would be comfortable like any technical person within a couple of weeks."
"StreamSets’ data drift resilience has reduced the time it takes us to fix data drift breakages. For example, in our previous Hadoop scenario, when we were creating the Sqoop-based processes to move data from source to destinations, we were getting the job done. That took approximately an hour to an hour and a half when we did it with Hadoop. However, with the StreamSets, since it works on a data collector-based mechanism, it completes the same process in 15 minutes of time. Therefore, it has saved us around 45 minutes per data pipeline or table that we migrate. Thus, it reduced the data transfer, including the drift part, by 45 minutes."
"In StreamSets, everything is in one place."
"The support is valuable. There are also open-source ETL products, which work very well, but there is no support. When we face a production problem, being able to get support is valuable, and it brings efficiency. With an open-source solution, we can't engage anyone to resolve the problem as quickly as possible."
"The technical support for Informatica PowerCenter is good."
"The solution is stable."
"It's a very powerful tool you can use to load data, get data, do the drawing between the tables, and put into the packet in a very fast way."
"Once you have learned Informatica, it is very easy to use."
"The number of docs has been reduced drastically, which is very good."
"I like the automated scheduling feature."
"It has a Data Catalog that uses the Model repository."
"The most valuable features of SSIS are that it works with the query language and it can import data from different sources."
"Built in reports show package execution and messages. Logging can also be customized so only what is needed is logged. There is also an excellent logging replacement called BiXpress that provides both historical and real-time monitoring which is more efficient and much more robust than the built-in logging capabilities. And none of this requires custom coding to make it useful unlike many other ETL tools."
"The script component is very powerful, things that you cannot normally do, is feasible through C#."
"SSIS integrates well with SQL servers and Microsoft products."
"It is also easy to learn and user-friendly. Microsoft is also good in terms of technical support. They have built a large community all over the world."
"Data Flows are the main component we use. These can range from a simple source to sink ETL, to many source to many sink dataflows."
"The main value of any Microsoft product is the ease of use. You can achieve more with less time. That's what's beneficial for me. With many competitors, you might need to spend more time coming up with a solution because you have to focus on taking care of the product."
"SSIS is an easy way to do data integration from various data sources. It doesn't matter whether it's a database, flat files, XML, or Web API. It can talk to the and join them all together."
"If you use JDBC Lookup, for example, it generally takes a long time to process data."
"Currently, we can only use the query to read data from SAP HANA. What we would like to see, as soon as possible, is the ability to read from multiple tables from SAP HANA. That would be a really good thing that we could use immediately. For example, if you have 100 tables in SQL Server or Oracle, then you could just point it to the schema or the 100 tables and ingestion information. However, you can't do that in SAP HANA since StreamSets currently is lacking in this. They do not have a multi-table feature for SAP HANA. Therefore, a multi-table origin for SAP HANA would be helpful."
"The logging mechanism could be improved. If I am working on a pipeline, then create a job out of it and it is running, it will generate constant logs. So, the logging mechanism could be simplified. Now, it is a bit difficult to understand and filter the logs. It takes some time."
"We've seen a couple of cases where it appears to have a memory leak or a similar problem."
"We create pipelines or jobs in StreamSets Control Hub. It is a great feature, but if there is a way to have a folder structure or organize the pipelines and jobs in Control Hub, it would be great. I submitted a ticket for this some time back."
"Integrating new tools can be tricky and challenging."
"There is a need to buy a separate license if one wishes to connect with some kind of SAP system, such as SalesForce."
"It would be good to recreate the entire interface to make it easier for users to build workflows."
"I would like to see it be able to import data from NoSQL."
"Its scalability can be improved. It is not scalable."
"There is some room for improvement in terms of pricing."
"We need another tool for monitoring. It would be easier if all the features were consolidated into one tool."
"It should be more cloud-centric than on-prem-centric."
"It should have other programming languages supported as well from a scripting perspective. Currently, only C# and VB.NET are supported, which limits it to .NET. It should have Java support as well."
"We purchase an add on called task factory primarily to allow bulk delete, update and upsert capability. I'd like to see this be part of the standard package."
"SSIS can improve by the minimum code requirements in stored procedures and exporting data is difficult. They could make it easier, it should be as easy as it is to import data."
"The solution could improve on integrating with other types of data sources."
"Sometimes we need to connect to AWS to get additional data sources, so we have to install some external LAN and not a regular RDBMS. We need external tools to connect. It would be great if SSIS included these tools. I'd also like some additional features for row indexing and data conversion."
"The solution could improve by having quicker release updates."
"Options for scaling could be improved."
"It's a legacy tool, that is nearing the end of its useful life."
Informatica PowerCenter is ranked 1st in Data Integration Tools with 32 reviews while SSIS is ranked 3rd in Data Integration Tools with 16 reviews. Informatica PowerCenter is rated 8.0, while SSIS is rated 7.8. The top reviewer of Informatica PowerCenter writes "A stable, scalable, and mature solution for complex transformations and data integration". On the other hand, the top reviewer of SSIS writes "SSIS 2016 - The good, the bad, and the ugly". Informatica PowerCenter is most compared with Informatica Cloud Data Integration, Azure Data Factory, AWS Glue, Informatica PowerExchange and Oracle Data Integrator (ODI), whereas SSIS is most compared with Talend Open Studio, Oracle Data Integrator (ODI), IBM InfoSphere DataStage, AWS Glue and SAP Data Services. See our Informatica PowerCenter vs. SSIS report.
See our list of best Data Integration Tools vendors and best Cloud Data Integration vendors.
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Curious why you would compare these 2 tools and why you wouldn't be looking for a PaaS solution?
SSIS is free verses Informatica is the opposite. But there are no plans to fully embrace SSIS within Azure. They have moved to ADF and Synapse pipelines.
That said there is IR (Integration Runtime) so you can run SSIS in Azure but it's limited in terms of SSIS add-ons. Clearly, the future for Microsoft is Azure and Synapse so don't count on SSIS staying around for many more years.
In fact, the BiXpress add-on has been deprecated by its new owner. And I would NOT recommend using SSIS without BiXpress as its built-in logging and error control is awful.
I'm looking at us migrating from SSIS to ADF over the next few years.
SSIS PowerPack is a group of drag and drop connectors for Microsoft SQL Server Integration Services, commonly called SSIS. The collection helps organizations boost productivity with code-free components and connect cloud and on-premises data sources. We find it very useful for connecting traditional data sources, big data, and NoSQL.
We like that it can carry out simple and complex transformations. It is easy to use and helps us connect with multiple systems and web services. It makes it really easy for developers to develop production SSIS packages. It helps us to pull data because it is DBA-friendly.
However, the filtering of the tasks is a bit difficult, and the error messages can be confusing and hard to resolve.
That’s why, when evaluating both solutions, we ultimately decided to go with Informatica PowerCenter. This metadata-driven integration tool is easy to use and effective even when creating complex mapping. It is easy to monitor jobs, create workflows, and detect bugs. It is well suited for handling a low volume of records, therefore maintaining a real-time operation at an affordable cost.
Another advantage is that it works with ETL-type data integration, connecting to almost all types of database systems. It has great support and documentation, too. Informatica PowerCenter can address different data quality issues, such as data masking and virtualization. It has supporting tools for big data as well. It is critical to ensure we can feed on multiple data streams and transform them into usable data in the data warehouse.
There are a few downsides, though. There aren’t many scheduling options, and debugging the workflows is kind of hard.
Conclusions:
Overall, SSIS is a very good group of tools. For organizations used to working with MS products, it provides easy integration and connections between databases. Since we work with a small number of records, the Informatica PowerCenter works better for us.