Denodo Reviews

I use the solution in my company as a virtualization tool. The tool helps users to connect with many databases and resources in the data lake. With the tool, I can create views for the front end of Tableau and other BI tools. I combine data from different or various resources and combine them to create views, which is also useful for analysis purposes. On top of the views I create with the tool, I also make dashboards.

The most valuable feature of the solution for data virtualization in our company stems from the fact that we have various data sources, and we combine those data sources. My company also uses the solution to connect to box files and for ingestion purposes.

Sometimes, Windows-related functions do not work properly in Denodo. The analytic functions in SQL do not work properly. The aforementioned area in the product needs to be taken care of for improvements.

I have been using Denodo for two and a half years.

It is a very stable solution.

It is a scalable solution. I can add as many resources as I want to in Denodo.

There are around 5,000 to 10,000 people in the company that use the product.

I am unsure if the solution is deployed on an on-premises model, but I am sure that it is not deployed on the cloud.

The product's deployment phase was done with an in-house IT infra team.

Denodo has streamlined data integration from multiple sources, such as various databases offered by Salesforce or PeopleSoft.

The tool helps with big data analytics or cloud integration processes since I use it to create views from various sources, and on top of it, I also make dashboards.

I work as a third-party or outsourced consultant in a company in India, and my team works in the USA, where Denodo is available in the service. In my company, there are around 70 people working with the product.

The performance and scalability of the product are nice. I only face issues with the analytical functions since they don't work properly for SQL.

I rate the product's UI an eight out of ten.

If a company has to deal with multiple data sources, then Denodo can be used for virtualization.

I rate the overall tool a ten out of ten.

I work for a company that provides financial solutions to banks and advisors. We need to send data everyday to different third parties in different file formats, like pipe delimited, comma separated, fixed width, xml, etc. Previously, we used to generate those files with the data using PL/SQL. After looking at the performance issues and the complexity, we started using Denodo.

We run scheduler jobs in Denodo, and the job will in turn run the VQLs. VQLs will gather the data based on the business rules and business logic. Finally, it will spool the data in a predefined file format, and then the file will be delivered to the respective recipient. Basically, we generate interfaces using Denodo.

Caching was very valuable to us.

In PL/SQL, first you need to gather all the data and then start writing the file, but in Denodo you fetch the data and write the data simultaneously. So, for example, if you have 1 million or 2 million records, you don't have to wait to fetch all of the 2 million; you can keep on fetching and writing in the file simultaneously.

Tasks such as conversion of a date format or conversion of a number format that can be done in a very easy way in different languages, like SQL or Oracle, are not so easy to do in Denodo.

For example, if you want to convert a date from one format to another, in Oracle it's pretty easy; in Denodo, however, it requires so many lines of code. Simple things that can be done very quickly in other database languages require more lines of code in Denodo.

The scheduler UI in 8.0 is not as good as that in 7.0. We have thousands of jobs, and if you search one job, get it, and click on it, when you come back, your search will be gone. You have to do your search all over again. The 7.0 UI was much better.

We have been using Denodo from the last quarter of 2018.

Right now, it's deployed on-premises, but in the next few months, we are planning to move it to the cloud.

It is scalable.

We have three administrators and about 20 to 25 developers working on this tool.

We have biweekly meetings with Denodo staff. Apart from that, whenever we have any issues or concerns, we just raise the ticket on the Denodo portal, and we get a response. The technical support is good.

The initial setup was okay for us and was not complicated. We created a couple of virtual machines; we got a 4-core license. We installed two VMs, and one was always active. The second one was always down. Whenever we needed the second one, we brought it up. Otherwise, we mainly worked on one VM.

Once the VMs and all the machines and infrastructure were ready, the installation and setting up of all the configurations took two to three days maximum to complete.

For maintenance, we have three persons, two on-site in the US and one offshore.

We deployed Denodo ourselves.

Before Denodo, our interfaces were running for six to seven hours to generate a file. After writing the same thing in Denodo, now those interfaces are generated in 25 to 30 minutes. So for us, we came down from seven hours to 30 minutes, and that is our ROI.

For us, the cost has been okay. Also, there are no additional costs; it's just the standard licensing fee.

First, understand your use case properly, and then analyze the tool and see whether or not the tool is going to perfectly fit your use case. Denodo is mainly for data virtualization, though it has the functionality to create files and write data in the files. However, given my four years of experience that is not the best use case for Denodo. For data virtualization and fetching data from multiple systems and data sources though, Denodo is a good tool.

I rate Denodo at six on a scale from one to ten.

Currently, we are using it on Azure. We have around four VMs with Denodo divided into development, quality, and production environments. We have various configurations. I don't really work developing the queries on Denodo, it's more on the administration side. I have managed the scalability, the configurations, and providing the environment.

Currently, we use Denodo mostly to query data from SAP. We have a very old SAP inside of Schaeffler that doesn't have encryption. To retrieve this data from other people, to use the same data, we use Denodo to make this encryption. Then we have a few databases, and we can create base views based on the SAP tables. 

In some use cases, they also create web services based on these tables as well. They use it a bit as an ETL tool. They use for data scouting. For example, we have one tool that was developed inside of Schaeffler called Discovery, where we used Denodo to get the metadata from basically all the different systems that we have.

It's been useful to have the same language to query manager-friendly databases. That would be the main benefit. The second one is that we can create web services without any programming based on the base use that we create on Denodo. 

Getting queries is great. They are really good. You can basically write SQL statements, and it can convert to MDX queries or to MongoDB queries, or any kind of data source. We have many different data sources. You just use the requisite language, which translates to all the underlying data sources. That's the best thing that we have on Denodo.

In general, it's good for us to make tests so we can scout the data. We can make POCs easily. 

It's not really scalable. We have a couple of problems with a high demand for the servers. It also doesn't have very good integration with Git, so it's not possible to work with branches with the developers. When it goes to production, then we cannot use it anymore.

The git configuration really should be improved. It would help a lot. Then the developers could have different values of the same project and use, for example, GitFlow for the projects. That would be amazing. If they had it, the scalability would be very good. And we can actually have one external metadata database for starting the Denodo configuration. However, it's very slow. 

If it were possible to work around Kubernetes, for example, it would help. They have some implementations. However, it doesn't really work as expected.

The solution is expensive as you are charged by the CPU. 

I've been using the solution for three years. 

For production the stability is okay since we don't have a lot of things going on. In production, we have a couple of years of use cases. Of course, there is a high demand for CPU and memory. However, in development, we have a lot of issues based on the problems we've had with the Git integration. There are a lot of conflicts, there are a lot of problems.  

If you have just the applications pointing to Denodo and running the specific query, it's okay.

The solution does not scale well at this time. 

We have a lot of users. They don't do the deployments. However, they do development in the development environment, of course. I would say we probably have 100 users.

I don't like the support. They always blame the customer. For example, sometimes we have some bugs on Denodo and open a ticket. They ask you to run thousands of tests to ensure that it's not a bug, however, in the end, it is a bug, and we knew since the beginning. Sometimes it takes a week for them to say, "Yeah, okay, it's really a bug." 

Then, God knows when they will give an update as they have one voting system at the service desk. Other customers need to vote on the same bug or the same feature that you requested, and then it will go in the next release. 

It's very hard, for example, to have a call with them. It's very hard to get support when it's a problem with the tool. They always say that the customer doesn't know how to use the tool and it's not so nice.

I was in touch with a company called Starburst and CData. They seem to do nearly the same stuff. We just had to try the tool, to install and try to run the same things on Denodo. I didn't really have time for that, so I cannot say a lot. However, it could be an alternative.

It's very easy to set up the product. We have the solution manager on Denodo, so you can basically create a revision. Suppose you have the database from one environment, for example, from development. In that case, it will generate basically a backup, and it will deploy this backup in the other servers that you want.

We have three people that handle the implementation and deployment. It's me and two students in my team who are learning how to do this stuff. We basically have three DevOps engineers who are in charge of that.

The deployment of Denodo is very quick. It takes less than a minute.

In terms of maintenance, usually, we don't have many problems. Sometimes we face issues with credentials, however, the procedure that we need to establish is not yet well-defined. That said, usually, in production, we hardly ever have problems.

I don't have details of how much it costs, however, it's expensive. 

You pay per CPU. If I have 10 CPUs or 12 CPUs, it increases the price.

We're a customer and end-user.

We're using the latest version.

We have a contract until the end of 2023. Then, maybe after that, we won't want to keep this technology. That said, we don't have any replacements so far. We have to run some POCs and tests and plan a migration since we have around 46 use cases on top of Denodo. It needs to be planned if we decide to switch.

A potential new user should run a lot of tests before they pay a license. For example, try the support and see if the relationship works. There are some customers that are very happy. We have not been as lucky. Some are very happy, some of them they are not so happy. It depends on what your usage will be.

I'd rate the solution seven out of ten.

We use Denodo in our organization whenever a web service is needed quickly, or where using another technology (such as Java) would take too much time. From our standpoint, Denodo is used in such a way that any consumer can build their own web service based on their data points. There's no need to ask the provider, "I need a web service for X, Y, or Z". Instead, you simply ask, "Hey, I just need the data points". For example, for a table, all you need is to ask the consumer to provide the table name and for whatever service you need, you can build your own web service on top of it.

It takes minimal effort to accomplish this with Denodo and it's an extremely quick process, especially when compared to doing the same thing with Java or any of the other technologies we are using. In fact, you can build a web service with Denodo within 10 minutes. Our web services can also be consumed via different methods where there are multiple possible levels of responses, and each web service can be duplicated to provide for each different level of response. So within 10 minutes, you can build a web service with different variations out-of-the-box. 

If you wanted to incorporate just one method in Java or AWS, it would take at least a day to deploy and have it set up to provide responses. But our experience with Denodo is that it only takes a few clicks and it will instantly deploy the web service, and then you are free to use that resource. 

As for our environment, there are two editions that we have the option of using. One being the cloud-based version, and the other is a client version which we can download onto our system. Most of our organization is using the cloud-based version, as all the patches are pushed directly to the cloud. Overall, we have about 100+ company members using Denodo, most of whom are product developers.

We have web services created for each of our applications, and ordinarily the creation of these web services would be dependent on the provider. We would previously ask our providers, "We need web service X, Y, or Z, and we need it by this deadline. Can you produce it by that deadline?" But now, the person who needs the web service can simply build their own based on the data points they are looking for. This kind of mindset is the main reason why we chose Denodo.

The best thing about Denodo is that creating and deploying a web service can be done in about 10 minutes, compared to a whole day when it comes to other solutions (such as when deploying with Java and AWS).

It's also really easy to do so in general, because no longer do you need to request the specifics of how the web service is to be created, but instead all you need to do is provide the data points needed and you will have access to a web service that is ready to serve you responses.

Not only that, but you will also be able to duplicate the newly-created web service to be used in different ways with various methods. And all this takes only a few clicks on a single platform, as long you know the data points that you need.

There are a couple of areas that can be improved in Denodo. From a stability point of view, sometimes we see issues in the data management functionality. This only happens now and then, however, and usually takes place when we add in our own customization.

There are also certain limitations on customizing Denodo, in general. It would be better if Denodo provided more mechanisms for users to develop custom products where they could easily build in their own logic with automated means. In the case of complex customization, we will usually use Spring Boot instead of Denodo, especially when we have tons of data in production and we need to segregate it based on certain logic. Otherwise, when it's a matter of minimal data points that are required, we will simply build it as a web service instead of writing the same logic in Spring Boot.

A feature that we have wanted since we started with Denodo is to have a fallback option. After we migrated all our web services to Denodo, it would have been nice to have a ad-hoc fallback option where if we ever do want to use something else, that option is available. For example, something where we have those built-in read-only views which we can reuse and, without too much time or fuss, build a web service on top of that by simply plugging in views, details, or any other part of the Denodo platform architecture.

I have been using Denodo for one year now.

At certain times we have seen some stability issues with the data management within Denodo. It's not all the time, of course, but only sometimes.

When it comes to more complex scenarios, we will typically use Spring Boot instead of Denodo to accomplish our needs. Usually, this happens when we have tons of data in production and we need to segregate it based on some logic.

With regard to scalability, we have different scaling strategies for two of our main products that we're working on. There isn't much difference in data points between these two products, but when it comes to the refreshing of the data, one of the products is refreshed on a minute-to-minute (or second-to-second) basis. With this product, the scalability of Denodo isn't fully up to the mark.

However, on the other product, we have no challenges whatsoever in terms of scalability, especially in terms of response times and accuracy. We have built a lot of web services on top of it with Denodo. 

When we purchased Denodo, our architects had a discussion with their support team based around what would be needed to improve things, such as scaling up at a later stage, and they were happy to help us out. We also occasionally write them emails whenever we encounter a challenge such as a code glitch, but otherwise there is no further direct interaction with them for the most part.

Denodo is one of the only products we have come across where the consumer can build in a web service without being dependent on the product team or anyone else. If you know the table name, or the data points needed, you can directly go ahead and import the schema and build your web service. Crucially, you don't have to wait for someone else to come and help you build the web service, which ultimately reduces the dependencies between our different teams.

This is, in fact, a main focus point we have come across in our work. In terms of data points, we will typically see 100+ data teams working with independent databases with no platform to connect them all. With Denodo, we can connect hundreds of databases with the data point connection, and it's all drag-and-drop to connect tables from whatever database we need. Then we just export the web service on top of it.

You can contrast this process with Spring Boot where you would instead need to go to a specific team and get access from them first. They would then have to take the name of the table and report it elsewhere in another format.

Of course, we also prefer Denodo for the simple reason that it is cross-platform across the different platforms we typically work with, which have extremely specific conditions when it comes to handling data.

The setup includes what is essentially a kind of software installation. If you go for the cloud-based tool, it's not much of an installation at that, because you just plug in your databases and you're ready to start working with it.

It's very easy and very fast. Basically, you are just plugging in the databases and setting the location of the cloud-based URL which will be shared by your team.

Denodo provides a lightweight 30-day free trial, but when we do courses on top of it, it costs $150 for each person. Even if you're not purchasing the product, I believe there is some kind of reward they will give you in the initial stage.

I, personally, am doing a couple of courses with them and each course costs a different amount depending on the level of the course, such as beginner, medium, or senior. The initial course level costs $150 and the mid-level course goes to $200, and I have seen a couple of courses at $350 as well. These costs are incurred as you enroll in a single course, which lapses after six months.

To people thinking about using Denodo, I would say that you should be clear about whether it fits the level of your architecture in terms of scalability. In cases where you have a low-level architecture, you shouldn't expect to get more results out of it simply by using Denodo.

Essentially, when you're building a product, your environment should be appropriately scaled to fit that product, and Denodo is built for the enterprise level, not for small-scale inter-system users. For example, in our organization, we use Denodo for its web services functionality, but when it comes to similar products in the realm of event streaming, for example, we will instead use other tools such as Apache Kafka, as appropriate.

I would rate Denodo a six out of ten.

We use this solution as an access layer and virtualization layer. We connect to a number of sources and then use Denodo as the main access layer for consumers or for reporting. I have also personally used it for integrating sources for some of our critical reports which was a use case outside the regular virtualization capability. We calculated some of the key metrics for our critical components. I'm a data solutions architect and we are partners with Denodo. 

The strength of Denodo is that we can connect to a lot of different sources; it easily integrates and directly connects. It's great that it can flatten a JSON file and present connectors with a view format for downstream consumers. I would say reading or connecting to various sources and presenting a tabular view is an awesome capability. It can also be done with PDFs. The product has a good technical data catalog. 

I think Denodo needs a bit of work with performance management. When data sets are huge and a heavy query has been pushed out to the database, it can take quite some time to get what you need without clear optimization techniques. It requires clearer instructions. Some features should be added on the performance management and optimization side of things. I'd like to see them provide more on data governance. In addition, it would be good to have some support for analytical queries in SQL as that can be a challenge at times. There is currently no advanced analytic support for the SQLs.

I've been using this solution for two years. 

Denodo as a platform is stable overall. It can be a challenge if there are hundreds of users running a lot of queries, and then one of the queries suddenly sucks up the resources. When that happens, the system fails and there can be a risk to the source. 

If you have the product on the cloud, it's easily scalable. The risk is that because Denodo connects itself to some source databases, if there are multiple users,  then fired queries are delegated to the source which is a risk to the source. Denodo itself can scale up or down if it's on the cloud. We have close to 100 users on a daily basis. 

We have a separate operations team but I have connected with Denodo support and they were helpful. They were knowledgeable about the product. We were able to directly interact with their technical teams. So anytime we raised a ticket, we got a fairly quick reply and they were able to resolve the issue promptly. In the early days, our operations team connected with the Denodo technical team once a week to run over any issues. They were quite helpful with that.

We also use DBT, which is a data build tool with a similar function in terms of creating views on SQLs and then deploying on Snowflake. Both DBT and Denodo are popular because both of them are heavily SQL-based. If you only use Snowflake, DBT is preferable to Denodo. But if you're integrating data from different sources, Denodo is likely preferable.

I wasn't involved with the company's implementation. Deployment was pretty straightforward when I implemented it on my laptop. There wasn't much to it; you install it, and it starts working.

This is an expensive solution although I'm unsure exactly what our licensing costs are. Denodo is set up in nodes and each node is extremely costly. 

We're still trying to find a place for Denodo within the organization's architecture. If you have a very clear use case, it's a good product. In terms of data virtualization, I think it's very well-rounded.

I rate this solution seven out of 10. 

Our ETL team was preparing the data warehouse, and we used Denodo as an intermediate solution.

It can support a number of data sources, and it can pull flat files, from cloud-based databases or from those on-premises. Denodo can pull from any data source and interface with the view. Then, we can publish the view. 

Though it's not a full ETL solution, teams downstream can utilize it, prepare it, and consume it in a secure way in multiple formats.

User-specific security at the column and row levels needs to be improved. Instead of applying security at every individual level, it would be better if it were at the group or tier level. It will save a lot of time.

Denodo could also improve the UI, data governance, and cataloging.

I've worked with Denodo for two years. It is on the database cloud, and it is a Linux based OSv.

We are satisfied with the stability now. We had some connectivity and driver-related issues earlier, but Denodo's technical support team helped us resolve them.

The architecture can support horizontal and vertical scalability. You can expand your servers if required, or you can expand vertically and also increase the size of the system.

In my company, in India there are 200 to 300 users. We have expanded to the US and plan to increase usage.

Denodo's technical support team helped us a lot. They resolved all our issues, such as connectivity and driver issues, because they have experts.

We bought both TIBCO Data Virtualization and Denodo. TIBCO is a strong product and was good, but the cost was an issue. The cost was the main factor and resourcing and support also came into the picture. TIBCO did not have much of a global presence. Given Denodo's licensing model, support, and market value, they opted to go with it.

Initially, we had a lot of trouble, but later on, our DevOps team prepared a script. Then, everything went well. Now, it takes half an hour to set up a new environment.

We have two people who handle the deployment and maintenance.

We handled the deployment in-house.

Cost wise, on a scale from one to five, with one being the cheapest and five being the most expensive, Denodo would be at three. We get all the features in a bundle.

They initially evaluated TIBCO Data Virtualization. However, Denodo was much more flexible and worked cost wise as well.

Deonodo is Virtualization for Logical Data Warehouse but is not a full ETL solution. You can use it if your dataset doesn't require that much ETL cleansing. On top of that, if you want to quickly show your data and use your data for  analytical purposes, then this is the best tool. We can connect to data sources on the go and can perform data privacy, data governance, etc. This is the best tool compared to other similar tools available on market. On a scale from one to ten, I would rate it at eight.

We use Denodo to improve data governance and self-service BI.

We had several data environments, one data lake, one data warehouse, and another instance of data in another silo, and we needed to deliver this data to our end users in an organized manner.

It was very, powerful because we could deliver this data in a short time and with some data governance, because you deliver it through a data catalog and you have the data lineage, and you can put there the role level security, column level security, and it was very helpful for us, and the end-user was very happy to have it.

The most valuable aspects of this solution are the short time frame in which you can deliver and connect.

I don't have a single feature because I believe the ability to connect disparate data sources is extremely useful. 

You can create a layer over these various data sources and deliver the data to the end user as a single data source. This, I believe, is the most powerful feature in Denodo, because it is data virtualization.

Consuming metadata from pipelines is something that would most likely be interesting. If we could integrate it, for example, with some ODI or some Data Factory, because if you have this, you might be able to take advantage of the work that the tech engineer has already done, and you might be able to turn Denodo into a more powerful solution because it can be used for more than just data virtualization.

The feature that you have to connect on LDAP needs improvement.

I am not sure if it's on Denodo's side, but sometimes it is very difficult to connect on LDAP, and you can take advantage of this by using the roles that have already been created there.

I have no complaints about Denodo's features, except perhaps the price.

I have been using Denodo for approximately one and a half years.

I no longer use it, but when I did, I started with version 7 and by the end of the semester, I was using version 8.

It was deployed both on-premises and on the Cloud.

In one company, I use on-premise, and when I worked at a consulting firm, I assisted in deploying a cloud environment for our clients.

Denodo is a stable solution.

Version 8 is much more stable than version 7.

Denodo is scalable.

We had approximately 1,000 users.

I no longer work for the same company. However, as a consultant, I always try to bring it to my manager in order to sell it to our clients, because as someone who works with data governance, I believe Denodo is a powerful tool for reducing the time it takes to implement data governance while also providing organized self-service BI.

The technical support is great.

I would rate them a five out of five.

Previously, we used Dremio, which was the only solution that allowed us to use it for free due to its open-source nature. We tried Dremio, and during the PoC, we didn't try any other tool, but we could see some presentations about Data Virtuality, which is a German company if I'm not mistaken.

It was a pleasant surprise to discover how simple it is to set up this environment.

We have a development team of five to maintain this solution.

When doing the PoC, we did use the consultant.

When we went to production to deploy on our side, we did it ourselves, with Denodo's help, because it was included in our license.

Yes, we saw a return on investment.

Depending on the size of the client you want to work with, it can be prohibitively expensive at times.

I am not sure how much it costs right now, but we did the PoC to justify purchasing the solution. It was approximately 1 million reais.

I would say that it is critical that you have some business model built, because it will guide you on how to implement the data sets in Denodo because you need to consume several data sources, but you must put them in some way that has some meaning to the business, you must migrate from physical modeling to logical modeling and business modeling. 

I would say you should incorporate these three layers into Denodo. To take advantage of Denodo, you must consider these three layers. Otherwise, you will just put some data there and no one will find it.

I would rate Denodo an eight out of ten.

We use Denodo to fetch ad hoc reports. The users can join tables or views and fetch the reports on their own. It is not a soft controlled environment or an OCC controlled environment, so they can do whatever they need. The have some room to play.

Data mining is one of the valuable features. We're able to connect all of the data sources with the installed driver, so that is a good advantage in Denodo. Being able to join the tables and view them is also valuable.

Monitoring event logs can be improved. In the older version, there was a monitoring schedule to get event reports and properly audit the reports. In the newer version, it is not there, and we have to manually configure data and audit events.

Denodo could create a UI for us to monitor the events. They could also provide a good training environment or basic training on how to create a view. At present, we have been creating our own material for training. It would be better if Denodo could provide that training material for beginners.

I've been using Denodo for about six years.

It is scalable, and we have 500 users.

I would give Denodo's technical support a ten out of ten.

Positive

The initial setup is very simple. Two people are sufficient for deployment and maintenance.

I installed it myself.

The pricing is pretty good, and I would rate it at four out of five.

Denodo is an easy tool that can be used for data mining. You can connect to all of the data sources. You can see the views easily.

A beginner may find installation complex as he will have to configure the scheduler, the VDP client, and the audit as well. However, it will be fine for an experienced person.

Overall, on a scale from one to ten, I would give Denodo an eight.