Informatica PowerCenter Reviews

Informatica PowerCenter is an ETL data integration platform.

It's all part of the data warehouse's extract, transform, and load process. Data is extracted from all source systems, transformed, and loaded into a data warehouse.

It is very robust, scalable, and simple to use.

It is very comprehensive in terms of connector and transformation capabilities from both a source and target perspective.

I believe that people are shifting to more agile, flexible platforms not only in this era but also in the last two or three years. This is happening not only on data management platforms but also on analytics platforms. Platforms for visualizing data dashboards. We used to have very rigid tools like Cognos and MicroStrategy, but Tableau and Power BI have recently taken over. The same can be said for data management. 

Informatica, in my opinion, is very rigid and not very flexible, whereas platforms like Alteryx or Matillion are very flexible and agile.

I have over 15 years of experience working with Informatica tools, and we have worked with Informatica PowerCenter in the last 12 months.

Informatica PowerCenter is stable. On a scale from 1 to 10, I would rate it a ten.

I haven't had any problems with jobs or projects failing or anything like that.

You can definitely scale it as the data volume increases. You have many options for scaling up.

The technical support is great.

They are responsive and simple to contact.

While I have not implemented it, I am familiar with Informatica PIM.

We have also used Informatica Cloud in the last 12 months.

The installation and configuration are both well-documented and straightforward.

I am not sure about the most recent price, but I think it should be $100,000 or more.

It's obviously the best.

I would rate Informatica PowerCenter a ten out of ten.

My experience is in the semiconductor industry with our customers using the Azure supply chain. We have built-in the AIS system, IBM and Db2. We transfer data from SQL Server to MongoDB and transfer the data to Db2.

Security is very important, the solution is deployed to the private cloud. We assigned five people to build the project.

Informatica PowerCenter is built into the technology supply system. I use the solution to transfer the MS data system to the supply chain system.

We use Informatica PowerCenter to transfer the transitional database to and from the data warehouse. This is very efficient as it enables us to quickly find our data reports and the data, so we can build AI models.

In the future, I would like to see Informatica PowerCenter integrate a more powerful dashboard.

I have been using Informatica PowerCenter for 3 years.

In my experience Informatica is stable, however, it depends on our customer's environment.

This solution is scalable. For example, we have set two data warehouses for one of my customers, we use Informatica PowerCenter to join several PV tables separate to data warehousing. This allows us to divide, separate and exchange our data warehousing to the schema and the people in the schema.

In my last job, I used Pentaho. 

The initial setup of the solution is easier than Pentaho. Informatica was set up by me with the help of two supply chain consultants, in one day. 

To implement Informatica PowerCenter you need to understand your customer's systems first and what their requirements are. It is important to understand their existing system and find the data. By understanding their logic, you can know how to extract the data and transfer the data to the data warehouse.

Informatica PowerCenter is reasonably priced. It is less expensive than Pentaho.

There is a standard version fee in Taiwan. It is a one-time yearly subscription price that is approximately $3,010 US dollars for three users.

This is my first experience with this kind of tool, I would rate Informatica PowerCenter a nine out of ten.

We primarily use the solution for the ETL.

They know what they're doing, and it's a more mature tool compared to Talend. They really think about every scenario. For example, if you want to write a data cleansing algorithm and all that is probably rules. It's just easier. There are a lot of provisions in PowerCenter. In terms of the transformation algorithms and all that, there are a lot of operations. It's great.

The solution is stable.

It's a scalable product.

PowerCenter seems to be a little bit higher side of cost. Customers are thinking about alternatives. Talend seems to be a pure Java-based thing, however, there are some technical hiccups there. There are a few finance companies are probably started using Talend as a competition tool for Informatica. Most of the smaller companies are trying to build open-source-based ETL tools.

It should be more cloud-centric than on-prem-centric. That is where the problem with Informatica.

We've used the solution for a couple of years. 

It's a stable product. There are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable.

The solution is scalable. 

We have three or four clients we are working with in terms of Informatica.

In terms of technical support, there is plenty of information is available online, however, their tech support is okay.

Snowflake is something that is surfacing. Every customer is now started asking about Snowflake. They're thinking of it being a viable option. When it comes to data warehousing, it's the kind of a solution that you want to deal with huge among this data processing. 

Most startups and probably smaller companies thinking of building a custom open-source pipeline. It could be Pulsar-based, or Kafka-based. And that is what they're looking at. In enterprises, they don't want to go with a hundred percent, the open-source solutions. They like Informatica or probably Talend or probably some of the ETL tools that are available.

It's not a simple setup. It requires a bit of a learning curve, no doubt about it. For example, if you want an index, a three or four-year engineer would need to handle that. If you want to make them as a utility engineer, there is a learning curve involved. 

It took us three to four months to deploy the solution. 

We have 12 to 14 people working on the deployment and maintenance of the solution. 

The pricing could be a bit better. 

For example, if you look at Snowflake, companies are thinking of innovative ways of reducing the price and then transferring the benefit to their customers. 

In terms of innovation, creativity is not there in this solution. It is still an on-prem ETL tool. Informatica is one of the best options today and no doubt about it. However, is it cloud-ready? I don't think so. Therefore, I'd rate the solution a five out of ten.

Beyond cloud readiness (or lack thereof), pricing is an issue. It's relatively high compared to other products on the market. We all have to move from IBM thinking. You sell the customer and then penalize them with the pricing, pricing, pricing. That is where IBM has today become a dead man walking underneath, has become two different companies now. This company should learn from IBM. Pricing cannot be the only way of making money and probably comes with innovation, creativity, making it cloud-ready, and then transferring those benefits in order to sell more licenses. 

Informatica PowerCenter is being used for data warehouse development, using ETL and ELT, e.g. Informatica PowerCenter for ETL and Informatica Cloud Data Integration for integration between systems, e.g. with their downstream systems.

What I like most about Informatica PowerCenter is that it enables integration and connection with multiple new systems, both structured and semi-structured. I also find its adapters for multiple source systems valuable. Its features meet industry standards. It is a proven high-performing enterprise-scale ETL solution.

Though I wasn't able to explore all features of Informatica PowerCenter, it would be good if Informatica can also have connectivity with NoSQL compliant, unstructured data sources, e.g. Microsoft Azure Data Factory or Talend.

The cloud-based solution mostly focuses on continuous data stream processing, but not on batch processing. If Informatica enhances this cloud-based solution to also do the batch processing of data, and also integrate semi-structured and unstructured data processing, that will be more beneficial.

I've been working with Informatica PowerCenter for 15 years.

I find this solution very stable.

Informatica PowerCenter is easy to scale.

The support team is responsive. They're able to address our issues.

The initial setup for Informatica PowerCenter was straightforward.

Implementation for this solution was in-house. It was done by our own team.

I evaluated Oracle Data Integrator, Talend, and Microsoft Azure Data Factory.

We are using these solutions: Oracle Data Integrator with different versions, Informatica PowerCenter, Informatica Cloud Data Integration, and Talend. Matillion, we explored, but we don't use it for our company. We are a consulting partner. We are an implementation partner, so our consultants use these to implement solutions to many of our customers. We are an indirect partner through Oracle, and not a direct partner of Informatica.

Informatica PowerCenter is deployed both ways: on-premises and on cloud, but on cloud very recently. In the past two years, we have been using the cloud version. Deployment for this solution could take one to two days, if the person doing it is knowledgeable.

We have a team of 70 members who are data engineers and data analysts, but for the actual installation, setup, and configuration, we have another team made up of system/application administrators. We have a shared service model with 50+ associates who take care of this service. They will take a day or two to complete the deployment. Given all the infrastructure details available from the customer, it wouldn't take more than a day or two, worst case two days on average to set up and start the system, for it to be ready for working on and developing the ETL.

To maintain this solution, in a shared service model, e.g. not dedicated, it requires two to three people, but if it is dedicated, then one person can handle the maintenance.

There are two ways we are using this ETL solution. Number one: as part of Oracle's prepackaged solution, and number two: as an independent solution.

I don't deal with the licensing, but as part of Oracle's pre-packaged analytics solutions, we did use them. There's a one-time fee plus yearly support. That is their model, but I don't know the costs associated.

My advice to new customers of this solution is that if they are looking for an enterprise scale data warehouse and data management solution, Informatica PowerCenter is one of the go-to proven tools. Its limitations are on these two areas: one is that it needs to enable the cloud-based version to do batch processing, e.g. heavy data loads, and two is that it needs to enable connectivity to the NoSQL compliant and unstructured data sources.

Keeping the two product limitations out, e.g. the cloud version has limitations for batch processing and is unable to process unstructured and semi-structured data, my rating for Informatica PowerCenter is an eight out of ten.

Informatica PowerCenter is a data integration tool. We use it as an extract, load, transform tool and we can transfer data from production to test or to any other environment.

We have several use cases. For example,  we use it to create data warehouse applications, which are used for analytics and to help generate business value.

Another use case is to modify a test environment such that it is compliant with GDPR regulations. We can use it to transfer production data to a test environment for the purpose of facilitating our testing. Another use case is that if we are working on a data warehouse application, it can be used to extract data from different sources to load into the target environment.

The most valuable features are that it is quick and easy to use. Anybody can master it in a short time.

The interface is very clean and clear.

This tool integrates with distributed systems.

I would like to see improvements made to the custom transformations. It should be more open for users that want to write their own code and use cases. As it is now, writing custom transformations is not user-friendly.

I have been working with Informatica PowerCenter for approximately two years.

This is a stable product.

Informatica PowerCenter is scalable.

We have one person in the company in charge of administration. 

I am part of a seven-person team that uses it, although there are a lot of other applications in the company that make use of PowerCenter. The number of users overall is huge.

We plan to increase our usage in the future.

Our admin team is from Informatica, and if we have any problems then we contact them. For example, the tool that I work on directly interacts with PowerCenter, where PowerCenter works as a backend for my application. If I have connectivity issues or need special access to PowerCenter, I contact the admin team and they help me to sort out the issues.

Prior to PowerCenter, I used an open-source tool called Talend. It was not very good.

The installation is not complex. It is easy to do because you just need one database, such as Oracle, set up as the backend, and some executable files.

I was not involved in the deployment. Another team in our company was responsible for it.

The licensing fees are paid on a yearly basis.

In summary, this is a good tool and I definitely recommend it. It integrates with distributed systems and if the use cases involve data ETL then this is the best tool to use.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

In the company I work for, we provide a lot of solutions. I've been working with a lot of clients. The last client I worked with was a big hotel company, and we used this solution for integration.

It's a very powerful tool you can use to load data, get data, do the drawing between the tables, and put it into the packet in a very fast way.

So for this client, we are using the MDM (Master Data Management), and the PowerCenter will be very helpful in building data and merging all the data between the different systems they have. They have a lot of systems that contain the same information and we want to put that into a single place. This is the most valuable feature of this solution which has been of great help to us.

To be honest, we didn't find big issues with this tool. All the issues we found, we were able to fix. We don't have any issues with the tool so far.

I would like to see this solution change the way it creates workflows. In Alteryx, for example, it's easier to build the workflow because of the way it was built, while PowerCenter was built in a more complex way to be able to process a large number of roles. The way PowerCenter creates the workflows is much more complex than the others, but nothing big. It's just that it's the old way. It would be good to recreate the entire interface to make it easier for users to build workflows. This is what I'd like to see in the next release.

I've been using it for 10 years.

The solution is stable. No complaints.

I believe this solution is scalable.

That's a tricky question because it's always complex. For the business logic, it's complex. They had a lot of systems and we had to do the integration between the source. I've been working with this solution for a lot of years, so to me it's straightforward. So that's a tricky question. I would say that for professionals, it's straightforward.

I evaluated Alteryx.

It's Informatica PowerCenter I work with a lot of times, but I also have knowledge on Informatica Data Quality. Now on my last project, I'll be working with MDM, but I'm not an expert on MDM, as I've mostly been working with PowerCenter.

I've been working with this solution since 2010 on a lot of projects which I don't have on top of my head right now. I live in Brazil and I've been working for the government for healthcare where I used this solution. I also worked with PowerCenter for an insurance company. I used this solution during integration where we also created a web API. This is a feature in Informatica that can deploy and make APIs available for third parties or vendors so they can do acquisitions, restore API, and get data. These are what we created in PowerCenter as well.

All the projects were deployed on-premise. I never work on the cloud, but I would love to. Deployment took six months for this project.

We have 30 to 50 people using this solution. If the project goes well, if there are more resources to implement this solution, and more features to improve the analytics of the company, then we will plan to increase usage of this solution.

I'm a PowerCenter guy, so I'm rating this solution a ten.

Our primary use cases of PowerCenter are database regulatory reporting cases. Both sides are suitable for us to net trace metadata and it's easy to develop or hedge, after production as well. It's also easy to understand the steps or ETL. 

I'm working with the latest update, and it's deployed on-prem. 

One of the most valuable features for us is the metadata repository because it can easily understand the lineage of first target mapping. My company and I also find Informatica really easy to use—when a consultant joins our company, in just a few days to a few weeks, they can understand how to use it—so we prefer to use this ETL tool. 

PowerCenter could be improved by having more big data components. Normally, we prefer Informatica as a relational database, but nowadays, companies are trying to understand and use big data components. I think it would be useful if we had more chances to create a hub ecosystem because customers try to use some data integration tasks by SQL, Spark and Spark codes, and Scala, but at the end of the day, the company will understand that we need to trace all the steps. An ETL tool is a must for that company, if we're talking about the regulated industries like finance, telcos, etc. If Informatica's biggest ecosystems feature were okay, I would prefer to use it. 

I have been working with PowerCenter for more than seven years. 

The stability and performance of PowerCenter are good. 

The scalability is fair enough. 

PowerCenter is suitable for large companies. The pricing could be an issue for some companies who want to implement and develop with PowerCenter.

I haven't been in touch with technical support in the last few years, but before that, I contacted them many times. I remember that when we were using PDW, the previous version of Microsoft APS, we contacted Informatica support teams a few times to handle connection problems with the driver of PDW, and they solved it. I was satisfied with the support. 

The initial setup of PowerCenter is a simple process. The first development took just a week—a few days is enough. 

We provide implementation services to customers. We are a consultant company, so we use it for our customers on the customer's side, but we don't have a business relationship with Informatica. 

Compared to other tools, I think PowerCenter is a bit expensive. When I compare it to Oracle, if you want to use Oracle databases, you can easily get an ODI tool, so it's easier to handle. Informatica is a standalone tool—it's an independent company—and there are no databases around them, so it's quite expensive to use. 

Generally, large companies use PowerCenter because of the price. If companies want to expand their usage areas, they try to consider if it's easy to implement and easy to understand the pricing. I think the pricing is a barrier for Informatica. 

I rate PowerCenter a nine out of ten. To those looking into implementing PowerCenter, I would advise evaluating whether they have a large company. If their first criteria is not pricing, I totally recommend Informatica as their first ETL tool, but if there are pricing, performance and support, etc. requirements, maybe they can evaluate ODI and Informatica together. If you have an Oracle ecosystem, I think you can get Oracle or ODI cheaper than Informatica, but if you don't, I think Informatica could be a leading option. It depends on what the customer has. 

We are generally using it for ETL systems. 

We have different sources of files coming, sometimes from the mainframe, and Informatica is very useful for accepting different sources, such as spreadsheets and databases, and doing the transformation. Libraries are also helpful. I also managed to go into the database and create my own transformations for mapping automatically.

The greatest feature is that it is very easy to have someone come in and jump right in. It is one of the nicest tools in terms of getting a person acquainted quickly.

What I didn't like about it is that the platform itself is not great at distributed processing. When you need high parallel processing, it has some inherent issues. We had to use Java transformation, and it did not go very well. I have heard that it is going to the cloud, but we haven't tried that. We have Informatica in-house, and we thought it would go with ADF. Microsoft is leaning on us to do that because we're working with Azure. So, I don't know much about cloud features.

The pricing model is a little bit difficult for development tools versus running the system in production. So, it has some shortcomings, but in general, it is not bad.

We worked with PowerCenter for a long time, and we have a site license for it.

We haven't had major problems. The issues that we had were more around libraries linking to other places. It was not so flexible there. For example, we used a Java transformation that needed a separate set of libraries, but they collided if a library was used by Informatica. So, we had to stay a version earlier. Although it seemed a little bit rigid on what it can provide in terms of the ability to go into the database and create your own stuff, I wrote a makefile that actually went into the database, and based on the parameters that people put in the makefile, created transformation for them.

I wasn't impressed with its ability to process in parallel. Some of it is inherited in the tool, and there is nothing you can do about it. For example, if you have aggregation, then everything stops, which is okay and I understand that, but for the other things also, I didn't see it scalable. I have heard that it is better in new releases.

I work with Azure Data Factory and Informatica PowerCenter, and we are now considering taking either of them. We did work with PowerCenter for a long time, and we have a site license for it. With ADF, we're just starting.

We have a site license, but we do pay by the division.

I would rate it an eight out of 10.

Our primary use case is to collect data from different sources and to build it for the house or data hub, or to fill already built-in appliances like Cloudera and Teradata. 

It has helped us meet our monetization needs. 

Real time is amazing. If you have AI use cases, you can predict if it's a threat or if it's a positive or negative transaction. You can use real time with PowerExchange to write data directly to Kafka, to consume, write, or parse data using an AI algorithm to detect if the data is positive or negative and to define what use cases you want. 

It would be nice to move from Windows tools (like Developer, Designer, or Manager) and have everything in one place like DATAQ developer, which is eclipse-based and user-friendly. 

CDC needs more improvement. It's stable and has good features, but it's only easy to develop if you are familiar with Linux. 

Sometimes a new monitor will not be accurate in logging or you'll open a log and get a misleading error message. The connection parameter is sometimes inaccurate, or the parameter will not load. Proactive Monitoring doesn't work very well with all of the Informatica processes. The latest version came out five years ago and there has been no enhancement since then. It doesn't make sense for a product to be ranked number one but have no enhancements. The product hangs and you can lose control for several hours. It works, but it hangs. 

I have been using PowerCenter and PowerExchange for around 7 to 8 years. 

It's stable and we rarely have any issues. During the setup, when developers tried to connect, there were some issues, but it ran smoothly once it was configured and fixed. Sometimes, there is conflict between servers (like Analytics, Data Quality, or PowerCenter) and we have problems with loading libraries.

It's easy to scale, but it has a limit. For high availability or for service on the grid, it's okay, but it has a limit. If we had the option to enable scalability based on big data architecture, like Adobe or MongoDB, it would be easier. In Enterprise Data Catalog (EDC), you can extend them by adding nodes to the cluster, but currently, to maintain scalability in both centers, you'll add a node, join the domain after that to distribute work, but fortunately, this works well. We also got a complaint, when adding a node, that the session failed without recovery. 

For technical support, there are levels. The first level of support is called TechAccess and it's between Informatica and other vendors. TechAccess takes time and their response is often delayed. After that, we escalate and go to the Informatica level of support. Once we reach them, they proceed to explain the solution. 

We've tried SSIS and DataStage, but we prefer PowerCenter for stability and monitoring. 

The set-up was simple and I did it myself. If you try it one time, it'll be easy the next time. The one product that does need improvement in installation is Enterprise Data Catalog, EDC. It's very difficult and all my colleagues hate communicating with and installing EDC.

I implemented it myself and with my team. We have expertise, so there was no need to engage Informatica Professional Services. 

The pricing is a little expensive, but in the same range as IBM and other competitors. There is not a big difference in pricing between its main competition. The pricing is mostly the same between other vendors. 

PowerCenter is good for large enterprises and good for ETL purposes, but not for ELT. If you need to go with ELT, Informatica has another package called Data Streaming that's more stable and recommended for a larger environment. 

I would rate Informatica an eight out of ten. 

We are a solution provider and this is one of the products that we implement for our clients.

The most valuable features are the monitoring tools and the reporting manager.

Integrating new tools can be tricky and challenging.

I have been working with Informatica PowerCenter for more than five years.

I have not seen any issues with respect to stability. 

We have been in frequent contact with the Informatical help center. It is not only me but other people in the company. They have been very good at supporting us.

We were using the cloud version of PowerCenter with one of our clients, but they have since moved to MuleSoft.

Usually, the initial setup for PowerCenter is straightforward. The is nothing complex about it. However, if you are integrating new tools or if you are putting in an adapter for a product like the Amazon Cloud Service or RedShift, it will be challenging.

The price of this solution is high.

With an interval of every couple of years, they upgrade to a new version and stop supporting the previous versions. At this point, you need to acquire a new license. 

If you are looking to add a new adapter then it will be more costly.

My advice is that if you are looking for a traditional on-premises service, PowerCenter is a good option to stick with. If on the other hand, you want a cloud-based service then there are better options.

In summary, this is a good product, and other than integrating with other tools, I don't face any challenges.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.