Informatica PowerCenter Reviews

PowerCenter has yet to announce additional features. The face that it has not made improvements is fine, as it is very easy to integrate. We are in touch with the vendors of products other than Informatica PowerCenter. 

The reason I chose to rate the solution as a nine out of ten is because there is a need to buy a separate license if one wishes to connect with some kind of SAP system, such as SalesForce. 

I've been using Informatica PowerCenter for more than 16 years.

The technical support is excellent.

The initial setup is easy.

The price is mostly reasonable. 

I am satisfied with the solution. 

I rate Informatica PowerCenter as a nine out of ten. 

We are using Informatica PowerCenter for our data warehouse to generate reports from heterogeneous data sources from XML, JSON, or CSV databases. We then do some transformations to generate XML ISO standards to send to regulators in Europe and UK.

We have found the PowerCenter and B2B data transformation most valuable. Additionally, they have many native connectors, high performance, and a lot of support documentation.

The solution can improve by providing more connectivity by having native ODBC or JDBC connections available. It will be easier and more people could start using it.

I have been using this solution for approximately 10 years.

The solution is stable.

We have approximately 40 people using this solution regularly in my organization.

The solution is not as scalable as the cloud solutions, we will be releasing it in a few years.

The technical support has been responsive and we were in contact with them quickly. We were very satisfied.

The initial setup was easy. The full implementation took approximately two weeks.

Our internal technical team did the implementation and handles the maintenance of the solution. The maintenance team makes sure Informatica services are started and are up and running.

The solution is in the middle price range compared to other solutions. There are additional costs if you want other features. For example, more connectors or the use of other solutions, such as Snowflake.

I would recommend this solution to others.

I rate Informatica PowerCenter a nine 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.

We like that it is cloud-based and the performance is good. The number of docs has been reduced drastically, which is very good.

If you were migrating or connecting with multiple sources, initially there were issues that caused network latency. In the latest version, there are fewer bugs.

The real-time database connectivity when getting the real-time data using the VPN is an area that needs improvement.

Being able to generate reports on all of the status of the monitoring tools and the job qualities would be very helpful to provide to the operational team.

I have been working with Informatica PowerCenter for 12 years.

We are using version 10.4.1, which is the latest version.

It is very stable. It's a solution that has been in place for 20 or 22 years.

The initial setup is straightforward. It is very easy.

When compared with Linux or Windows, it was very easy and simple to install.

It takes two days maximum to implement one nanometer.

When compared with other ETL or ELP tools, Informatica PowerCenter is the best for connecting to multiple sources, which is better when you have large loads. 

I would definitely rate Informatica PowerCenter a nine out of ten.

We receive the data files from insurance carriers. We load the data, do some processing, and then make the data available to their internal systems. We apply some business transformations and data validations and share the data in the healthcare domain and EDI B2B exchange.

Its version varies based on the customer, but when it comes to the cloud, we have the latest version. We have been using Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services (IICS) for two years. We have used IICS for two purposes. One is for data integration, and the other one is for application integration.

Complex transformations can be easily achieved by using PowerCenter. The processing layer does transformations and other things. About 80% of my transformations can be achieved by using the middle layer. For the remaining 15% to 20% transformations, I can go in and create stored procedures in the respective databases. Mapplets is the feature through which we can reuse transformations across pipelines. Transformations and caching are the key features that we have been using frequently. 

Informatica PowerCenter is one of the best solutions or products in the data integration space. We have extensively used PowerCenter for integration purposes. We usually look at the best bridge solution in our architecture so that it can sustain for maybe a couple of years. Usually, we go with the solution that fits best and has proven and time-tested technology.

Its licensing can be improved. It should be features-wise and not bundle-wise. A bundle will definitely be costly. In addition, we might use one or two features. That's why the pricing model should be based on the features. The model should be flexible enough based on the features.

Their support should also be more responsive to premium customers.

We have been dealing with this product for around 20 years.

It is stable.

It is easy to scale. It has the concept of a grid, but it is too costly because you also need Informatica big data edition. Informatica PowerCenter has its own software licensing called big data edition. So, whenever we want to scale to a huge volume, we need to go with big data. It has horizontal scaling, which always impacts the price. I can go for a four-node cluster grid or an eight-node cluster grid, which will have an impact on the price.

We have scaled it for one of our enterprise customers, and we had a little bit of complexity in setting it up, but we were able to achieve the desired goals with respect to the performance.

We have been in touch with Informatica support. They should be more responsive. They should react quickly to premium customers.

Different products are suitable for different use cases. One unified product cannot address multiple use cases. For example, Informatica may not be suitable for real-time integration, but it may be helpful for batch integration. Similarly, MuleSoft caters to low latency, but it doesn't get into high latency, which means it is not suitable for larger data processing systems. That's why we need to have a combination of technologies. For example, I may say that I have a resource or a person who has a primary skill and a secondary skill. Primary skill is specialized, and then secondary skill is complementary to that. Similarly, every product has a primary thing and a secondary thing. For Informatica, it is the batch processing, not the real-time data processing. It only processes the structured data, but it does not process unstructured data. For unstructured data, you need to go for a different product. For the cloud version, they have introduced IICS specifically for catering to the application integration requirements.

It is a simple process because we have a pool of experts in our team. Some manual work could be required. We did have challenges while setting it up, but we could also resolve those challenges. 

We provide development, integration, operations, and maintenance services for Informatica solutions to the customers. We do ETL monitoring, and we monitor the daily loads and resolve and manage the pipeline features. 

We also handle the change requests coming from the customer and performance optimization. We may sometimes also look at the transformations optimization, caching, and all those things.

It is for big enterprises. We have leveraged Informatica for big enterprises but not for small and medium enterprises because it is a very costly product as compared to other products. We propose this solution only for enterprise customers. For small to medium enterprises, we would propose the Microsoft solution.

Its licensing is currently bundle-wise. It should be features-wise and not bundle-wise.

It is a very mature product, but now everyone is moving to the cloud. They need to give more attention and focus more on the IICS rather than PowerCenter. PowerCenter on-premises will cater to one or two industries, and they should give more features in IICS. It can cater to only 70% of the features of Informatica PowerCenter. The data integration is currently not as mature in IICS. It doesn't have Mapplets, and we have faced some constraints. We have already logged a service request for this.

I would rate Informatica PowerCenter a nine out of ten.

It is easy to use, and it is quick for developing things. It is fairly powerful, and it can integrate with a lot of different platforms without much hassle.

Its interface can be modernized. It is an old product. I have been working with it for 14 years, and it still looks the same. It hasn't been modernized much. 

It also needs to handle more modern formats, such as JSON files. It works with the old text files and databases, but it does not always work with the newer, modern stuff. You need to make your own programs to support that kind of stuff.

Support is also a kind of difficult with Informatica. They don't do direct support and rely on using their distributors around the globe for support, which means that you kind of have to go through this layer of different companies before you get help.

I have been using this solution for about 14 years.

It is stable.

It has a cluster repository kind of thing where you can add multiple server nodes.

That's actually one of the parts that are kind of difficult with Informatica. They don't do direct support. They rely on using their distributors around the globe for support. In Norway, there is a specific company that has the license to sell Informatica, and they also provide the support, which means that whenever there is a problem, you kind of have to go through this layer of different companies before you get help.

It requires consultants. I won't be able to do it by myself. I would need some help to do it.

Whenever we need to do an upgrade, we need to call a consultant to do it. It takes about a week for the preparation and all other stuff.

I would recommend this solution to others depending on whether they are on-prem based or cloud-based. If most of their data is on-prem, I would recommend this solution. If they are not on-prem, I would recommend looking for another tool that is more suitable.

I would rate Informatica PowerCenter an eight out of ten.

This solution is really the backbone of what we do. Informatica PowerCenter is one of the most used platforms for data governance in the banking and insurance industry. It's quite expensive so it's not used much outside the industry, but it's very reliable and strong in everything connected to data management and data governance strategy. For our industry, that is crucial. We are customers of Informatica and I'm the head of big data and solution architecture. 

From my point of view, the solution has two valuable features. It has the ability to manage a huge quantity of data along with a high level of reliability from a performance point of view. Secondly, it has all the tools and features within the platform to establish a real data governance strategy. That includes lineage data preparation, ETL, ELP, everything regarding monitoring and processes that are implemented in the platform. It's quite feature full in that regard.

The solution currently requires quite an established data center in place because there is no option for software as a service so the best option to install the platform is on-prem. I know Informatica is thinking about it because they are introducing a brand new platform for big data management, but it doesn't yet have the same level of features as PowerCenter. This is something they can improve on. There are some significant differences between the two platforms.

The other issue is price. I understand this is a high-level professional tool designed for big companies that have a great need for managing huge amounts of data and I understand these kinds of tools are quite expensive, but sometimes the cost is too high. Their focus is obviously a high-level market but I think there would be other companies who would want to use it but it's too expensive for them. 

I'd like to see improved on-prem support like Cloudera which is very oriented towards traditional databases, like Oracle, SQL Server and others. 

We've been using this solution for five years. 

It is clearly a stable solution, otherwise it would not be used in industries such as banking and insurance. Technically speaking, it's very stable and reliable. In my opinion, it's one of the most stable and reliable platforms for data governance.

Technical support is good and a lot has improved over the years. 

Most of my customers use solutions in the cloud so I've used Azure in AWS and GCP. There are lots of services, platform services, or software as a service, tools that are used for the same purposes or objectives, like data governance, data preparation, data integration. It's hard to compare because the environment is completely different and they have different issues. PowerCenter is quite a traditional technology. A product like Hadoop, for example, for storage and process management, has the same objectives but they are fulfilled in a completely different way.

The initial setup is not so easy but once it's been deployed it's quite reliable from a performance point of view.

My advice for this product is to be aware of what's involved and be sure about deploying and using it because it's a very technical tool, something you cannot buy and install in some weird brutal machine. It requires planning and has to be managed, not only in terms of using it, but also economically speaking, because of the cost.

I would rate this solution a nine out of 10. 

This product is primarily used with an Oracle product called OBI EE, Oracle Business Intelligence. It is used for integration and data visualization.

This is the best tool that we have.

The most valuable features are the metadata repository and the data warehouse application console.

The only problem with this product is the level of complexity with the number of levels of transformation that you have to go through. I would say that's the biggest issue.

We have been working with Informatica PowerCenter for about seven years.

I think that PowerCenter is pretty stable.

We have three different instances of this running. There is one for development, one for pre-production, and one for production. As far as having to scale linearly, we haven't had the need by putting additional nodes for high availability or load balancing. It's not something that we've necessarily needed. We have not scaled up, either. So, no vertical and no horizontal scaling. It was pretty much used out of the box.

We have two people who are using this solution and they are developers.

Oracle came in and they implemented a lot of the functionality that we needed. Beyond what we received from Oracle, there were very few times where we needed support.

Most of the time, the only thing we needed technical support was with Oracle patches and we ran into a problem, something broke.

Initially, we were doing a custom PL/SQL ETL type of procedure.

We just decided to go to an automated tool, something that was more visual.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. I don't think that there were any problems with it.

We had a lot of assistance from Oracle and the implementation took less than a week.

It's much more expensive, almost three times more expensive than most other solutions.

Oracle put Informatica into their product line. They use Informatica fo do the integrations.

The one benefit is that you reduce your administrative overhead by implementing this tool, and you get more functionality out of it versus most other tools. 

With a lot of other tools, you have to do a lot of hacking in order to get things to work properly for you, whereas with Informatica, you have a lot of flexibility.

I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.