Informatica MDM Reviews

I am not quite sure that the product will be part of our use cases anymore. We started off with it because of the data lineage. In other words, we used it because we also used the older Informatica program and it had been serving a purpose for us as a data management tool. But now we are in the process of developing our own solution for at least part of that functionality.  

We currently plan to keep Informatica MDM, but not for the complete handling of the data analytics. We use MDM for data gathering in big data environments. We start with Informatica and do further analysis outside the product.  

I think the most valuable part of Informatica is the flexibility in extending the data model. I think that is the biggest benefit. The data quality component is also an important part of it.  

I have begun to lose track of what needs to be improved because we only use the product now for what it is best at and in those areas it does not need improvement.  

There are two main things and that make up the complete Informatica suite solution. One is the insight into the data lineage which was a huge promise made by the product, but one that it never delivered in practice. That was the big problem that we are trying to solve in another way. The second part of the solution, especially for MDM is its ability to use the data by integrating with other process engines.  

So the insight into the data or the data analysis part needs to be improved.  

I have been using Informatica MDM (Master Data Management) for about two years now.  

Informatica has been stable. It does not have downtime during processing.  

I would say that Informatica is scalable. Right now we have about 20 people using the product directly. The scalability would be in the volume and types of data it can scan and collect and it is good at performing these services.  

With technical support, there is a big gap between sales, presales, and support for the end-users. Like with the data analysis the process starts good but in the end, there is no delivery. There are too many promises and too little delivery. So the support could be also improved after the sales, or I would say that the post-sale support should be improved to be in alignment with the pre-sale support.  

Informatica is definitely not easy to install. In order to do the installation and to set up the whole program, I would say it is complex.  

On a scale from one to ten (where one is the worst and ten is the best), if I were to rate Informatica MDM and I had a review site, I would mark it as a seven-and-a-half out of ten possible points. It has not delivered on all it has promised.  

On-premises

I like the number of options that are presented with Informatica, fuzzy matching, and your screen. I feel the screen or the configuration is pretty easy and pretty straightforward. To learn or to ramp up is also pretty straightforward.

They have too many diversified products. If you don't know Informatica, it's very confusing and feels very idiotic. If you want data quality, they have one tool. For management, they have another tool. If you say MBM, they have a tool, and they have another tool to get something up. From a split tools perspective, it's confusing for a new user and somebody who doesn't understand Informatica. 

They say they provide support, but it's not easy for somebody reading and didn't use Informatica before. The price could also be better.

I've been using Informatica MDM for 12 years. 

It's pretty stable.

Scalability depends on what you choose and how we will do it. If you don't know things, things get complicated.

It starts pretty well, but it takes time. I would give technical support only a six or seven out of 10. I won't say it's like "wow" kind of stuff.

I have been using it for a long time, so it's pretty straightforward for us. I don't know if it was complex earlier. What we're doing is technically complex, and there's always room for improvement. 

We implemented it. You need two or three people to install it, then it's easy, and one person can maintain it.

It's pretty high for us. It's more on the higher side, like low to middle high.

I would tell new users that even though you feel it's pricey, there are a lot of options that come by default. They have to understand that they have to choose somebody who understands the product very well.

On a scale from one to ten, I would give Informatica MDM an eight.

The flexibility to interact with many different sources and targets like Oracle, MySQL , Flat Files, Informix, SAP thru PowerExchange, applying different transformations that you can configure in an intuitive way, gives both business and IT teams the opportunity to track the data lineage and also to provide value to the data workflows you create, integrated to feed the MDM solution together with Data Quality processes.

The portability to use your integration flows into MDM and Data Quality helps to improve the data stewardship and also provides value for the metadata management you can take advantage of to document your business rules while interacting with different business data.

The product ranking we provide is 8 out of 10 -- because there are parts of connectivity with SAP Non-Unicode that are not supported by Informatica, since they only provide connectors to write on SAP Unicode. Then, we had to develop and enable the connectivity to write into SAP Non-Unicode.

Mainly, MDM requires improvement when you need to migrate your version to a later one -- because it is very difficult and takes a lot of time to convert the processes you have already developed and implemented on a previous version, and can cause a need to rework the processes.

We've been using the Informatica Solution for Data Integration and Data Quality for 12 years. We've been using MDM for seven years.

Sometimes the IDD console connectivity.

The difference between components and functionality from one version to the immediate latest one.

It is good, however response time is always depending on the support contract you acquire.

SAP MDG. At that point in time, it was not prepared to provide flexible integration and data quality process to generate a 360 view.

The initial setup was kind of complex while polishing the business requirements to be translated into technical flows.

I recommend reviewing and assessing the volume of data you will incorporate into the MDM, because the pricing seems to be based on row count used at the MDM Entities you built.

Yes -- SAP MDG and IBM MDM .

First, you need to assess the status quo of data integration and data quality at your organization, then, after you settle these strategies and implement the solutions, it is advisable to go for MDM.

If you do it the other way around, it will cause a lot of headaches and will cost you many more resources, time, and overall creditability to generate value beyond just results.

• Integration - it provides a single code-base with all data management technologies, and handles all entity data types in all modes (for operational and analytical use)
• Model-Driven - it models an organization’s business definitions according to its own requirements and style. All metadata and business services are generated on the organization’s definitions. Informatica MDM Hub can be configured with history and lineage.
• Flexible - it implements all types of MDM styles registry. Reconciled trusted source of truth and styles can be combined within a single hub. Informatica MDM Hub also coexists with legacy hubs.
• Reporting – it has an integrated Data Stewardship User Interface Application which has been recently integrated with Jasper reports. One of the most powerful open source reporting engines which can provide on demand MIS (Management Information System) reporting

I've never been a client, but can suggest the usage across industry verticals.

• Regulatory compliance, such as financial reporting and data privacy requirements
• Avoid corporate embarrassments. For example, you can improve recall effectiveness and avoid mailing to deceased individuals.
• Cost savings by streamlining business processes, consolidating software licenses, and reducing the costs associated with data administration, application development, data cleansing, third-party data providers, and capital costs.
• Productivity improvements across the organization by reducing duplicate, inaccurate, and poor-quality data, helping to refocus resources on more strategic or higher-value activities.
• Increased revenue by improving visibility and access to accurate customer data, resulting in increased yields for marketing campaigns and better opportunities for cross-selling and up-selling to customers and prospects.
• Strategic goals, such as customer loyalty and retention, supply chain excellence, strategic sourcing and contracting, geographic expansion, and marketing effectiveness.

UI application performance was quite disappointing until v9.0.x, but with 9.5 and later versions, they have facelifted the UI. Still there are some performance improvement scopes.

I would like to see a custom service based integration of MDM Hub with the Informatica Data Director (presently JMS and SIF) and a seamless usage of Informatica 9.5+ versions with other databases such as SQL server which still has quite a few bugs.

I would like to see more ETL capabilities inside the MDM tool to be a self-sufficient in handling data extractions

I've used it for about five years, including 9.0.x (7/10), and 9.1.x (7.5/10).

No issues encountered.

Sometimes, but it depends largely on the design decisions.

Absolutely brilliant. Their on-demand support is really good speaking from a development team perspective.

Very straightforward. You just need to finalize the version based on business requirements, and I always suggest you get the latest version. And there is a Product Availability Matrix available which will guide you through the rest of the process.

To create and launch new products/services on telecom security.

It has good processes and governance.

• NPI
• Security
• Governance
• Risk management.

• By improving customer service
• Integration solutions development
• Implementation style.

Still implementing.

• Matching, merging and survivorship
• Maintaining cross reference and merge history information

A lot of my pharmaceutical clients had to implement an Aggregate Spend application to track how much money they are spending on their prescribing physicians. This was need to comply with the Sunshine Act and their was a need to uniquely and unambiguously identify these physicians. The Informatica MDM tool provided a very robust and cost effective solution to implement a single view of physicians.

The major area of improvement is its GUI front end. The out of the box solution call Informatica Data Director is not at all user friendly, it is a data stewardship tool. A user friendly and feature rich front end will be a great improvement.

I've been using it for over eight years.

Only minor issues which can usually be resolved by the Informatica Support team.

Never when the implementation and sizing guidelines were followed.

Never when the implementation and sizing guidelines were followed.

Customer Service: Customer service is very timely and consists of very capable and competent staff.Technical Support: Technical Support is very timely and consists of very capable and competent staff.

I was implementing the Siebel UCM product before while working for Oracle. I had to switch because my client opted for the Informatica/Siperian MDM solution. I have been implementing this product ever since.

The initial set up and configuration is fairly straight forward, which is one of the strengths of this product.

I have implemented this solution with vendor teams as well as in-house ones. A rigorous Vendor Selection process including reference checks are a must if using a vendor to ensure successful implementation. I prefer to work with in-house teams so that it becomes a great learning process for everyone who will have to enhance, maintain and support the MDM application.

In most of the implementations we used relative implementation costs rather than ROI and the Informatica MDM solution is very cost effective.

It varies by the size of the projects based upon number of sources, data volumes and quality, complexities, etc.

Most of my clients go through a Product Evaluation and Recommendation phase during their MDM implementation and the other options usually evaluated are solution offerings from IBM, Oracle, SAP, SAS, Trillium, etc.

Always start by forming a robust Data Governance organization to ensure implementation of good data quality standards, policies and processes.

The Match-and-Merge feature is valuable.

We are now more equipped to address the customers' issues.

• Performance issues can be looked at
• Improved release documentation is expected because I feel that the current release document doesn't give you the clear picture of what has been fixed and what has not been fixed from previous versions.

3 Years

We faced issues with User Exits post deployment, but those were addressed by Informatica.

If the guides are followed then the instructions are very well documented about issues that may crop up during up-scaling/upgrading.

Customer Service:

Excellent. Informatica has one of the best customer services with an excellent turn around time.

Technical Support:

Very good, a couple of technical support team members are excellent and they handle the case very professionally.

Complex, it is not just a NEXT NEXT NEXT button click setup, it requires understanding of PAM document provided by the vendor and mapping it with your hardware and then carefully setting up each of the elements - database, application server and then the software itself.

In-House along with some help from third parties. Understanding the business and collecting the initial requirement is the most important aspect and moreover verifying the collected requirement should be done so that there are no disconnects or gaps in understanding how the eventual implementation will look like.

The product is the best in the industry (as it is multidomain) and the vendor support is excellent.

It allows you to build your own rules to identify the golden records as part of master data management.

It helped my client, a technology company, to identify a unique customer and remove the redundant customer information. For example, a customer might be linked with a product to the organization directly, indirectly or as a retailer. Informatica MDM helped us realize our goal of maintaining a distinct (golden) record in our database for better decision making and reporting purposes.

I've been using it for 15 months.

In general, it is good. We used to face some Java application problems, approximately two issues a month.

As the data keeps growing, we have to clear temporary storage space. Otherwise, we encountered issues in starting the batch jobs.

Customer Service:

3.5/5.

Technical Support:

3.5/5.

I worked as a vendor for one of my clients. As I heard recently, the contract is still on, so I think we are doing pretty well.

I used this product almost 18 months ago. Informatica is one of the renowned names in Enterprise Information Management and there has been some changes for their MDM product. I would suggest you check their recent upgrades and take an informed decision.