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IBM InfoSphere MDM vs Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) comparison

 

Comparison Buyer's Guide

Executive Summary

Review summaries and opinions

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Categories and Ranking

IBM InfoSphere MDM
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
6.2
Number of Reviews
9
Ranking in other categories
Master Data Management (MDM) Software (8th)
Informatica Intelligent Dat...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.7
Number of Reviews
215
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (1st), Data Quality (1st), Business Process Management (BPM) (7th), Business-to-Business Middleware (2nd), API Management (5th), Cloud Data Integration (2nd), Data Governance (3rd), Test Data Management (2nd), Cloud Master Data Management (MDM) (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (2nd), Data Masking (2nd), Metadata Management (2nd), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (4th), Test Data Management Services (3rd), Product Information Management (PIM) (1st), Data Observability (2nd), AI Data Analysis (1st)
 

Q&A Highlights

it_user545286 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Software Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Dec 09, 2016
 

Featured Reviews

SoumikDolui - PeerSpot reviewer
Assistant Consultant at a tech services company with 10,001+ employees
Provides inbuilt data model and good matching engine
It's a tough tool for developers. Right now in the market, I think Informatica MDM is number one and is used a lot. IBM MDM was developed by some other company and IBM developed it more. There are definitely some flaws. The tool is difficult to understand from a customer perspective and for developers. Generally, customers can understand Informatica MDM and its functionality easily. If a developer is facing issues with IBM MDM, then a customer will definitely not understand most of the functionality. That is the main concern. IBM is introducing some Next-Gen MDM, where they are using a lot of current technologies and machine learning. Most of the problems we may be facing right now are probably solved in that version.
RC
Contractor at Sanlam
Cloud data catalog has streamlined lineage and quality while leaving more automation to improve
I have not explored IDMC's automation capabilities driven by AI and metadata too much at the moment, but it is on the cards. We are basically creating the foundation, as the whole migration has taken place recently and it is still early days. I think Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) is evolving, and as the vendors move forward, they pick up new concepts from each other. I have seen that products leapfrog each other, and from my experience over the years, the big players tend to copy features or add enhancements based on industry trends. I feel whatever the tool does not have now, there is a feedback loop allowing us to request new features, and we continually ask for different ways to do things as we have a pipeline into the product management team. It is difficult to say what additional features I would prefer to see in the next release of IDMC. I would appreciate more automation on the lineage front, with more AI to seamlessly join independent sources and create seamless lineage between different technologies, such as from file into database A into a different database and landing up in a reporting system such as Cognos, Qlik, Qlik Sense, QlikView, or Power BI.

Quotes from Members

We asked business professionals to review the solutions they use. Here are some excerpts of what they said:
 

Pros

"When users update their information on one product, the data is sent to a database. My approach was to maintain a master data record, ensuring that each platform loads the latest updated record. Instead of having three separate records, the system keeps one master data record, storing the historical records for reference."
"The ability to standardize and match names using a combination of global name recognition and an MDM server is a valuable feature for us."
"The stability is fine, as it is built for large-scale industrial usage and worked without a problem at Lloyds Bank where we were dealing with 300 million transactions a day."
"For the company I work for, not having MDM is not an option."
"The features that are most valuable are the governance, the end-profiling, and the ETL which allows you to see the metadata repositories."
"It is one of the best MDM solutions available on market."
"The advantage is that the matching engine is very good, so that's why customers generally prefer it, and from the inbuilt data model perspective, IBM MDM is good."
"There are not really many areas of the product that need improvement because the product stays up-to-date with data management needs."
"I have rated the stability a ten out of ten due to a high level of satisfaction."
"Informatica Persistent Data Masking can mask production data for different users, ensuring that only authorized individuals can access sensitive information."
"I am impressed by the solution's interface."
"The MDM solution is capable of integrating multiple systems, so it helped us to solve the purpose of centralizing the depository as well as the standardization of mass data. It takes away all the ambiguity around data integrity issues or all the process challenges which happen when every stage of a process uses a different source as master data."
"The tool's most valuable feature is bulk upload. We upload files in CSV or Excel format."
"The flexibility to interact with many different sources and targets like Oracle, MySQL, Flat Files, Informix, and SAP through 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."
"We are able to set rules, establish a data quality management platform, and monitor the quality."
"When we use Informatica, we have a complete global vision of our clouds and the local application data and that is very important for us."
 

Cons

"The stack architecture seems too complicated as a result of having too many components that needed to be built together."
"The tool is difficult to understand from a customer perspective and for developers."
"Though probabilistic search is supported, this feature is not an out of the box API."
"We also want better cloud integration, so we could do things in the cloud if we needed to. This would be a good feature to add in a future release."
"The master data, and the reference data management in the toolset are not good."
"The product is really only created for large organizations."
"It's complex because of the poor quality of the documentation."
"However, it needs to mature in several areas including, UI, DAM, lighter out-of-box features, and simplify the currently complex technical footprint."
"The setup is complex."
"It needs to be a little more intuitive but it’s really not bad."
"If I wanted to improve something, it would be the way we import or the way we design the policies."
"We cannot sell the product directly with an additional layer."
"Complex to adapt data model provided using web service and e-commerce one."
"New machine learning could be added to Informatica MDM because the solution is outdated and is not moving with the current trends. The solution is good, but it definitely needs a lot of improvement and needs to speed up as per the market."
"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."
"I would rate my experience with the initial setup a two out of ten, with one being difficult and ten being easy."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It may be costly for small organizations but adds value for large organizations with demanding workflows."
"Informatica MDM's price could be lower."
"We got a 50% discount."
"I rate the product's price a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is the cheapest and ten is the most expensive. The product is a bit expensive."
"I rate the product's pricing a five on a scale of one to ten, where one is cheap and ten is expensive."
"There is no doubt that it is very expensive, but the brand value comes at a cost. Other MDM solutions in the market that haven't proven themselves like Informatica are also pretty expensive. We need to understand that MDM itself is very expensive to implement. So, Informatica is also pretty expensive. I would rate it a two out of five for being pretty expensive."
"I rate the licensing cost of Informatica MDM a five out of ten."
"Cost-wise, I think it is on the higher side, and that is why we are looking for some better options. Licensing costs are huge compared to other players in the market and for my company."
"I rate the product's pricing a seven on a scale of one to ten, where one is the lowest price and ten is the highest price."
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Answers from the Community

it_user545286 - PeerSpot reviewer
Principal Software Systems Engineer at a tech services company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Dec 9, 2016
Dec 9, 2016
Riversand technology is leader in the MDM space and makes a product called MDMcenter. Gartner and Forrester put these guys in a leader and visionary quadrant topping Informatica, oracle, and sap. They have a product used by many fortune 1000s and multinational companies. I have rolled out MDM solutions for a bunch of customers using different platforms and Riversand's is the best. They hav...
2 out of 7 answers
it_user348246 - PeerSpot reviewer
Architect at a tech services company with 51-200 employees
Dec 8, 2016
If you buy InfoSphere MDM Domain Hub Standard Edition you can use following products: IBM Process Server Standard v8.5.6 IBM Process Server Standard for Non-production Environment v8.5.6 IBM Process Center Standard v8.5.6 IBM Process Designer v8.5.6 IBM Content Integrator v8.6 IBM DB2 Enterprise Server Edition v10.5 IBM Cognos Business Intelligence V10.2.2.0 IBM InfoSphere Information Server Enterprise v11.5 IBM Integration Bus Healthcare Pack v3.0.0.0 IBM Integration Bus Express Edition v9.0.0.3 IBM Watson Explorer v10.0 IBM Rational Application Developer for WebSphere Software v9.5 IBM WebSphere Application Server Network Deployment v8.5.5 IBM WebSphere Application Server Base v8.5.5 IBM WebSphere MQ v8.0 IBM WebSphere Portal Server v8.5 IBM Installation Manager & IBM Packaging Utility for Rational Software Development Platform v1.8 IBM Security Directory Server v6.4.0.0 For IBM InfoSphere Master Data Management Enterprise Edition you can use also: IBM InfoSphere Big Match for Hadoop v11.5 InfoSphere Information Server contains both DataStage (ETL engine) and QualityStage (DQ components which are fully integrated with ETL). You could always check which products are provided in license on Software License Portal (http://www-03.ibm.com/software/sla/sladb.nsf/search)
it_user311469 - PeerSpot reviewer
Works with 10,001+ employees
Dec 8, 2016
Will do but can you help me out with my groceries for this week ? ( please stop sending me these emails. I am a professional not a volunteer) Sent from my iPhone
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
16%
Healthcare Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Government
6%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Construction Company
7%
Computer Software Company
6%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Midsize Enterprise3
Large Enterprise8
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business51
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise155
 

Questions from the Community

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Also Known As

InfoSphere MDM, InfoSphere Master Data Management
ActiveVOS, Active Endpoints, Address Verification, Persistent Data Masking
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

L'Oreal S.A., Kingland Systems, Oncor, Farmaceuticos Maypo, Volkswagen Financial Services
The Travel Company, Carbonite
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