2019-07-29T10:11:00Z

What needs improvement with IBM InfoSphere DataStage?

Miriam Tover - PeerSpot reviewer
  • 3
  • 168
PeerSpot user
30

30 Answers

SM
Real User
Top 20
2023-01-05T11:28:24Z
Jan 5, 2023

The solution can be a bit more user-friendly, similar to Informatica. I would like the solution to have some basic streaming functionality added.

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Rahul Saxena - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
Top 5
2024-01-23T13:00:11Z
Jan 23, 2024

The product must improve logging. It must also improve the navigation guide. When there is an issue, the product must give us insight into why a particular task failed. The troubleshooting guide is very bad. There is no detailed documentation, and the troubleshooting must be done manually. It is a time-consuming task. We must spend much time finding the root cause of a particular task or execution failure. It is very difficult to find an expert in DataStage.

Amir Amin - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
Top 10
2023-09-12T07:56:06Z
Sep 12, 2023

So, there are some features that are missing. If I compare DataStage to Talend, Talend allows you to write custom code in Java or use these tools in your applications as well if you are building a job application. But in DataStage, it does not allow you to write custom code for any component. Moreover, Talend allows you to extract Java code and call it in your APIs or applications, DataStage does not have this feature. In future releases, DataStage could benefit from the ability to save metadata into a database. So, if the database crashes or you lose the data in the database, you could recover it. Unlike files, which are harder to manage.

MM
Real User
Top 20
2023-07-12T07:54:05Z
Jul 12, 2023

There could be more customization options for the product.

Kirill Slivchikov - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
Top 5
2023-06-23T13:21:44Z
Jun 23, 2023

It would be great if they can include some basic version of data quality checking features.

Shifa Shah - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
Top 5
2023-05-24T12:30:03Z
May 24, 2023

I don't know if it's just a problem with me, but the issue I see is that when we connect to the server from the client, especially when you're going to run a job or something, the whole connection is really slow. It takes a lot of time to actually trigger your job and then go into the logs and other stuff. So all of this is really time-consuming.

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Sumeet  Zalpuri - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
2023-04-07T10:53:24Z
Apr 7, 2023

There can be data quality issues sometimes. It might not be the application. It may be a human error or an issue with the users or developers as well. The initial setup can be complex.

AM
Real User
Top 20
2023-02-17T13:34:27Z
Feb 17, 2023

A lot about the solution could be improved. I'd like to be able to do more with the data and metadata, including copy and pasting, et cetera. It has become easier with the cloud, however. I'd like to have the ability to customize code.

ArturKowalczyk - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
2022-11-02T13:01:48Z
Nov 2, 2022

We'd like better integration with source control and error and diagnostic information. The error messaging needs to be improved. The solution is a bit complicated.

Roshan Jayakodi - PeerSpot reviewer
Reseller
Top 10
2022-08-30T10:49:18Z
Aug 30, 2022

Their web interface is good but the on-prem sites are outdated. The solution could also be improved if they could integrate the data pipeline scheduling part of their interface.

Tirthankar Roy Chowdhury - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
Top 5Leaderboard
2022-08-03T16:41:47Z
Aug 3, 2022

What needs improvement in IBM InfoSphere DataStage is its pricing. The pricing for the solution is higher than its competitors, so a lot of the clients my company has worked with prefer other tools over IBM InfoSphere DataStage because of the high price tag. Another area for improvement in the solution stems from a lot of new types of databases, for example, databases in the cloud and big data have become available, and IBM InfoSphere DataStage is working on various connectors for different data sources, but that still isn't up-to-date, meaning that some connectors are missing for modern data sources. The latest version of IBM InfoSphere DataStage also has a complex architecture, so my team faced frequent outages and that should be improved as well.

Utkarsh Shrivastava - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
Top 20
2022-05-08T13:21:17Z
May 8, 2022

As a product, it needs to be more stable. It's a legacy product, so even though it's high-performing, it's not very stable compared to other products like Informatica or Talend. The UI also looks dated. In the future, I would like to see more integration with cloud technologies. Technical support could be improved.

UF
Real User
2022-03-03T13:15:11Z
Mar 3, 2022

From an actual point of view, we think, that the supporting functionality for developers could be better. We would like to see e.g. functionality for automated mapping of columns in SORT Stages to the output or a good GUI (we know, that IBM is working on this, we would love to see this in a stable version).


We also would like to see even better integration of DB2 (e.g. support of all data types, as e.g. timestamp is lacking). 


Support of merge, ingest and so on could be better.

reviewer1784124 - PeerSpot reviewer
User
2022-02-16T12:01:23Z
Feb 16, 2022

Many updates to the interface are now available including visualization. There is even a trial version on the IBM cloud.


From the description of the Data Stage service: "Preview and visualize data with options to customize and export views"

AE
Real User
Top 10
2022-02-13T17:03:41Z
Feb 13, 2022

The solution should be more flexible. 


Also, I have a point regarding the data visibility over jobs flow as I can't see what has happened at different stages.

KS
Real User
2021-09-23T14:58:04Z
Sep 23, 2021

From a practice point of view, solutions such as IBM InfoSphere DataStage and Oracle Data Integrator are losing ground, whereas open-source solutions are becoming increasingly powerful. For example, we are currently working hard on several examples, and in a few years, open-source solutions will take the lead in the market. It will be used by large enterprises. Clients are looking for open-source solutions more and more. It would be useful to provide support for Python, R, and Java.

AG
Real User
2021-07-20T11:36:40Z
Jul 20, 2021

The solution is currently lacking virtualization ability. If they were to include it, it could be a good evolution on this framework. I'd like to see an improvement in support and a more customer friendly and knowledgeable support staff.

JM
Real User
2021-04-06T12:32:33Z
Apr 6, 2021

The initial setup could be more straightforward.

PR
Real User
2020-11-25T13:05:17Z
Nov 25, 2020

The interface needs improvement. The interface in Informatica is easier than in DataStage. The licensing can be improved. Many companies are moving away from DataStage because it is expensive. The biggest issue that is unclear is how are they integrating into DevOps when they are binary files. We would like to see DataStage integrated with DevOps so that a pipeline can be created for auto-deployment. Right now we are all doing it manually.

NC
Real User
2020-10-19T09:33:28Z
Oct 19, 2020

The response time from support is slow and needs to be improved.

CO
Real User
2020-09-16T08:18:36Z
Sep 16, 2020

The product is pretty complex to set up. I think it is quite expensive. So, the set up could be simplified and the price could be brought in line.

MU
Real User
2019-12-11T05:40:00Z
Dec 11, 2019

I think that performance monitoring could be improved. I know that my colleagues don't give good monitoring. I'm not sure if it's because of the product or because they don't do it normally, but performance monitoring is an issue. I also believe integration with the cloud is not so clear. It's typically a heavy system that people install on-premise. You can install it in the cloud, but it's not so straightforward. You don't find a lot of information unless you go to the IBM cloud. I think IBM is behind in cloud strategy, we would like to put it in the cloud, but there isn't much information about that. There are three things that could improve - the cloud, monitoring and cloud integration. It's a solid product but not a modern one and of course it depends what you're looking for.

PB
MSP
2019-12-09T10:58:00Z
Dec 9, 2019

The mod options should be simplified. Some options on DataStage aren't working properly. The solution needs to lower its price. The template mapping could be easier. The solution should allow for compression of data.

it_user1093698 - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
2019-12-05T06:53:00Z
Dec 5, 2019

The interface needs improvement. It is really too technical. That is the main problem. In the next release, they could offer more connectors with the new database, especially cloud databases.

Muharrem Iseri - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
Top 5
2019-11-27T05:42:00Z
Nov 27, 2019

The price would be the first thing I would want to change. Reduced cost would allow more customers to choose the product. It's quite expensive in relation to the cost of other similar solutions. I think it would also be helpful if the product was more adaptable to other platforms and vendors. I would also like to see an improvement in support.

KS
Real User
2019-09-26T04:11:00Z
Sep 26, 2019

The previous project was based on Microsoft SQL. It moved huge amounts of data from different data sources and DataStage to a middle stage, then moved it to Netezza. This created a bottleneck in the solution. We are trying to streamline it and create ETL processes. These will take data exactly from the data sources and move them to Netezza without using of a middle database. The volume of data is quite detailed. We are talking about records in the tens to hundreds of millions. We would be happy to see in next versions the ability to return several parameters from jobs. Now, jobs can return just one parameter. If they could return several parameters, that would be great. We would be happy if the IBM could give us more tolerance for bad networks or VPN channels, as this happens from time to time. It would be great if we could use more than one SQL operator in the Source DB connector stage. Currently, in the target DB connection stage, we can use several SQL operators, but in the Source DB connector stage we can use only one. It would be better if we could use several. Data Vault is become more popular. It would be great if it appeared in the newest versions. I would like them to have more database procedures.

it_user953511 - PeerSpot reviewer
Real User
2019-07-31T05:52:00Z
Jul 31, 2019

I really like this tool, but the administration should be on the same client application because a lot of administration features are not on the client-side, and they usually need to have administrative access. It's quite complicated to force IT, teams, to have separate administrative access from the developers. The platform also needs more stability. It caches a lot. It crashes on the application servers that the host allows on the platform. The solution needs better online tools for data, or for sourcing data on the internet. They have InfoSphere exchange but it's not as useful for DataStage.

UF
Real User
2019-07-29T10:11:00Z
Jul 29, 2019

The features that could be better starts with the user interface. It has been getting better in the last releases and in the past few years, and I guess that they will continue to make progress on this front. But even with the improvements that they have made, it could be even better now, and really should be. I think it's a little bit difficult to use because of the interface. Being user-friendly is important for any product and they need to make this adjustment. In addition to improvements in the base user interface, I would say it would be good to incorporate more interface options for cloud-based systems.

AM
Real User
Top 20
2019-07-29T10:11:00Z
Jul 29, 2019

The documentation and in-application help for this solution need to be improved, especially for new features. By comparison, in Talend, there is help available for all of the features. One of my clients has a problem using this solution with MongoDB. In the next release of this solution, I would like to see the ability to copy and paste schemas. It would be very good because as it is now, you have to save the schema to a repository and then re-load it. It can be done in Talend, but in DataStage, it is not as good.

TD
Real User
Top 20
2019-07-29T10:11:00Z
Jul 29, 2019

The solution should be more user-friendly.

IBM InfoSphere DataStage is a high-quality data integration tool that aims to design, develop, and run jobs that move and transform data for organizations of different sizes. The product works by integrating data across multiple systems through a high-performance parallel framework. It supports extended metadata management, enterprise connectivity, and integration of all types of data. The solution is the data integration component of IBM InfoSphere Information Server, providing a graphical...
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