Collibra Platform Reviews

We have a client that was planning to do a digital transformation. They came up with the use cases and they have a couple of departments. They are mainly based on legal systems including corporate trust, etc., that they want the data to govern. Their requirement was basically if any new person is hired, they would have everything in Collibra, including all of the business glossary or the tables or the reports. Basically, everything for their onboarding process was available there. It was also necessary to give that to anyone that wanted to know about their department.

We only just started with this project and have only started learning Collibra.

On the client-side right now, any onboarding or any seminars or any training they are conducting, they can just pull the data from Collibra and show it to anyone. Every single data source, we can connect with the Collibra and we can pull out any data. We can create our traceability diagrams or trace any connections, like end-to-end connections, and link the data to the report. Some will be encrypted data, however, we will know which is related to each business term.

We can create our own policies, and we can link with the data quality rules. Collibra can even provide some validation rules. If there is a business term that exists without a description, the validation result will show as false. It is pretty customizable and pretty user-friendly so far.

The most valuable feature of this solution is mainly on the report side. They have a couple of reports in finance and we can connect with Tableau or Power BI, or even SSDT. We have connected with Power BI and Tableau right now. Once we connect with the source, we can pull all the data, and we can create a hierarchy based on that, and then we can link each attribute in the report with the table name and the column name. After that, we can link it with the business terms as well. It's like an end-to-end flow. We can create even traceability diagrams, views inside the system.

The reporting is very good. The solution offers a good business glossary. The diagrams are also pretty easy to understand for everyone. We had to link with the IT department, which had some difficult workflows, and they want to automate everything. The solution can do that for them. It's still a work in progress, however.

The solution is quite customizable. If I took a business term account, I could link it with the table account, and then I could link it with the account ID, and then there'd be some account receivables report. Each attribute in this report account ID, I can link to and create a linked diagram. This can be shown to the business users. The business users need to see the glossary and the attributes and if we can link anything we can create relationships with the data. There are some out-of-the-box attributes, which are present in Collibra, however, in addition to that, we can also create our own any.

If you compare the solution to something like Axon, it's pretty user-friendly. Anyone can come and understand the tool very easily. Axon isn't as user-friendly compared to Collibra. 

It's not a complicated product. Collibra also has Collibra DG and Collibra Console, but in Informatica Axon, everything is all together. Everything, including the backup schedule and all these things, has another web application in order to maintain all that information. 

While connecting with the data source, it's not very easy. If there's a firewall, it is difficult to connect with the database. It's not easy when you are configuring on the database.

Right now, the client is decommissioning the MuleSoft integration and they're moving to APIs. Collibra Connect and MuleSoft integration were there before, however, now there's a move to API. Within a year or two, they will all move to API. Whoever is using it now with MuleSoft and Collibra Connect needs to find another way for connecting with the API. 

I don't think they are providing additional software for MuleSoft integration. Primarily, they are telling us, okay, we will decommission this and move to API. The only thing that's lacking in terms of the change is when connecting to database. Sometimes the connection causes issues if the data is breaking the firewall and ingesting the data.  

I'm currently using the solution. I've been working with the solution since March of 2020.

The stability has been good. We haven't had any complaints. It seems to be quite reliable. We've deployed into production and until now we haven't had any page loading issues or refresh issues.

We had around 100s of business users using collibra, we never faced any performance issue. And we had SSO configuration enabled for all users. Performance wise collibra is stable. 

The scalability is good. If a company needs to expand, they should be able to quite easily.

In terms of technical support, they have documentation from Collibra University. They have subcategories that you can search through. That can help with a lot of troublshooting.

However, if we are facing an issue in production, they will reply in a short span of time, usually within half an hour or 15 minutes. They will connect with us to resolve the issue.

If it is in our working environment, it will lag by four or five hours. They try to prioritize service and get to you as quickly as they can only in critical situations.

Our client has taken some Collibra hours as well. We can schedule some sessions with the Collibra team to learn the system. We have taken around 36 hours approximately and have utilized the service alongside purchasing the product.

While I've seen Axon, I haven't worked much with it. From the look and feel, and from my navigation, I find it's very difficult compared to Collibra, which seems to be rather straightforward.

I was involved in the initial setup and I did not find the implementation overly complex.

Once we started setting up the Collibra tool, they provided a pretty detailed user guide. Along with that, there are so many videos available in Collibra University, which is pretty self-explanatory. We just needed to go through that and understand it all. 

You will get all end-to-end details of what software can connect, what data sources it accepts, etc. Lately, they have changed a lot of the certification levels. Earlier, it was level one, level two, level three. Now, they changed in each area. There are certifications for solution architect, business analyst, workflow manager, etc.

We had three people from our organization that assisted with the initial setup. One person was the cloud administrator. He set up everything with the cloud. Another person was doing the console setup, it was a single sign-on, so he was adding all the AD directory. We had two environments, actually, one production and one dev. The third setting up the environments. In the console only, we needed to mainly set up all these things, add all the data sources, JDBC drivers, SSN configuration, email configuration, all these things needed to be done in the console. That was the primary setup.

Deployment took, in total, about two weeks. Post-deployment, there really isn't any maintenance necessary. We can schedule backup, either on a weekly or daily basis. Whatever changes we make, we can take to the backup. If we make a mistake the backup will be available to override it.

The client is pretty happy with the Collibra work so far. They have achieved their digital transformation goals for 2020 and therefore they were pretty satisfied with the tool. We can connect with IDQ or anything we need to. It's been a successful project.

There are two license types - author and consumer. The author has all of the rights. He can edit and catalog anything. The consumer has limited access. We have around 10,000 consumers and 40 author licenses.

Professional training costs are in addition to licensing costs.

The pricing is pretty high if you compare it to other governance tools. 

We didn't evaluate other options before choosing this product.

We are Collibra Partners. We have a business relationship with the organization.

If we have a Collibra expert on your team, it will be easy. Otherwise, new users should expect a bit of a learning curve. ANyone working closely with it should take some Collibra training alongside the product purchase. Professionals will help you and guide you in creating an organization level or department level unit with a glossary and everything. They can give you more insight. I'd also advise users to try to take the certification, which is free of cost in Collibra University, or try a partner training certification.

Overall, I would rate the solution eight out of ten.

Our primary use case of this product is for metadata information for our technology assets. We also use it for all the governance dictionaries, and for minutes as well.

The solution is very useful for IT people but it's also helpful for those not literate or knowledgeable in IT. The sales department, for example, can track where the information is coming from, where the transformation is happening and where they can find a report for any specific asset. It's very important for them to have it handy, and I believe that for the people who need to know that information, it's very good.

The diagram showing the limits is absolutely magnificent. It shows an end-to-end business term or any asset going from end-to-end. From a visual perspective on the diagram, it's simply beautiful.

The workflows and the language they use needs to be improved. Programming the needs for every user on the workflows is a key improvement that is required. In addition, they haven't updated their training solution in a while. We need to implement a lot of things ourselves and they want us to move to the cloud but there are a lot of glitches in the system. There are three environments - stage, development and production. Often things work well in the first two stages and then when you get to production, they don't work. It happens a lot and their response is slow. 

I've been using this solution for 18 months. 

I would say that stability is around 85%-90%. It's very stable compared to other solutions on the market. 

Scalability is very good, excellent. 

Collibra provides one-on-one technical support, which gives access to a very knowledgeable person and their customer service is amazing. The only problem is that sometimes they don't know the answer so they have to check it out and get back to us. Sometimes you reach a dead end and that's the main problem of their system. We also now get in-house support.

We didn't switch from another solution, but we were using other solutions to control metadata. We used Infomatica for our transformation things. It wasn't like a governance tool. We also used Spark IS, an information solution, to harvest the data we needed.

The initial setup took a week because our systems are tricky due to security considerations. Deployment throughout the company took about six months, but that's an internal issue because of training implementation and that adds to the time. It's our main governance system so we had to move carefully. We already have 2,100 people using it. Operations uses it a lot and sales uses it for everything. 

For now, only 60% of our company is using it, so there's no ROI yet. 

Collibra started at a very reasonable price and then they increased the cost significantly by about 150% and almost lost us as a customer. It was something that the people from procurement and from finance ask whether the solution is really necessary.

At the time we also evaluated Unify, which became Boomi after it was purchased by Dell. That's an amazing tool as is Informatica. The issue there was that the price was too high. We went with Collibra because of the price and what it gives the end user.

Sometimes the technical support is messy but the system is great. It's a very good tool and I would suggest speaking directly with the technicians who develop the tool, rather than customer service. It's a great tool for a medium size company. if you're in a larger company, I would recommend implementing team by team. It's a tool that the end user needs to understand so if you implement it all at the one time, people will have difficulties and you won't have the support. 

I would rate this solution a seven out of 10. 

The primary use case is generally about IT people trying to manage their metadata to control what data their organization has and where it's going, as well as to manage data quality and integration. Ideally, that needs to be tied to their business outcome, but that's still quite a rare use of the product. I'm the president of our company and we are partners with Collibra.  

Collibra are very good at helping organizations get a handle on controlling data and the knowledge around where the data is, its type, etc. If you don't know something, you can't protect it, so they help with that.

Their user interface is much more business friendly than anybody else's. Also, their workflows, the rules and policies on workflows, are really strong. They're very good at that. I would also say that the roles and responsibilities, their way to manage people within that process is efficient. Their GDPR module is also pretty good. 

I think the connectivity with different applications could be improved so that they ingest metadata through different applications, through integration with applications. The integration with different metadata sources is not where it needs to be. The company strategy is also, honestly, infantile compared to a lot of companies. If they were to extend the GDPR, if they were to kind of anonymize that and make it more general so it could cover CCPA and a number of the other legislations around the world, that would probably be a good thing.

I've been using this solution for about six years. 

The stability is good but it's only as good as the processes within your company. 

The solution is scalable, it can handle large volumes of metadata.

The technical support is limited. It's high quality, but not high volume, meaning that they have some really good people, but not a ton of them. Nowadays, a lot of people are getting into tech, but they're not really experienced in the particular solutions they're dealing with. It's also potentially hard to find people for that area that are really good, because it requires different types of experience. They have to know the application, but they also have to understand how applications work, how data warehousing work, things like that. Nothing against young people, but when they've only been in the industry for a few years and don't necessarily have that experience, they may not be able to help as much as you might need.

The initial setup is pretty straightforward. 

I'd say that you need to understand what your business goals are around privacy and data, before implementing Collibra. The solution is not like an RSA Archer. They're not a security and risk application, they enable security and risks through management of metadata. They're a piece of the process, but they aren't the primary piece of that process. If somebody's looking at a security and risk application, I wouldn't necessarily say that this is the solution. They should look at data governance as part of the process of managing risk, but they shouldn't look at Collibra as primarily that type of application. If you're looking for a privacy and risk application you might want to look elsewhere, not because of quality issues but based on the full feature capabilities they'd be up against. I don't think Collibra can compete on those fronts. 

I would rate this solution an eight out of 10.