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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 (7th)
Informatica Intelligent Dat...
Average Rating
8.0
Reviews Sentiment
6.8
Number of Reviews
214
Ranking in other categories
Data Integration (2nd), Data Quality (1st), Business Process Management (BPM) (6th), Business-to-Business Middleware (2nd), API Management (6th), Cloud Data Integration (3rd), Data Governance (3rd), Test Data Management (3rd), Cloud Master Data Management (MDM) (1st), Data Management Platforms (DMP) (2nd), Data Masking (2nd), Metadata Management (2nd), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (3rd), 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.
Divya-Raj - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr. Consultant cum Assistant Manager & Offshore Lead at Deloitte
Handles large data volumes effectively and offers competitive pricing
There is a lot of improvement required, as we still face some cache issues most of the time, which is a challenge that we expect to see resolved in the future. Additionally, there is some limitation when we are working with a tool, especially regarding In and Out parameters, and I feel that this aspect should be improved going ahead. We face issues with the API side, as Cloud Application Integration cannot handle large volumes; according to the API page, there is a limitation of 500 records or 500 MB. The AI integrated into the Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services solution is called Application Integration, where we still face challenges when dealing with huge volumes, as previously explained.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"There are not really many areas of the product that need improvement because the product stays up-to-date with data management needs."
"The advantage is that the matching engine is very good, so that's why customers generally prefer it. From the inbuilt data model perspective, IBM MDM is good."
"The features that are most valuable are the governance, the end-profiling and the ETL which allows you to see the metadata repositories."
"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 solution's technical support is pretty good, especially since the turnaround time is good."
"The valuable feature is metadata management. If you want to trace sensitive data, you can auto-classify them. You can search for sensitive information through EDC. Using Discovery, you can identify if there is any type of data set."
"I have rated the stability a ten out of ten due to a high level of satisfaction."
"Data integration is the most valuable feature. The ability to connect to any of the sources and enterprise applications makes our lives easier."
"I rate the technical support a ten out of ten."
"The tool's most valuable feature is bulk upload. We upload files in CSV or Excel format."
"The feature I found most valuable in Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services is the mapping. You just drag, and it maps the data. Mapping is very easy, and it's no code. When you migrate data or when the data interaction happens at the source and destination, the challenge is that you'll get different formats. The validation has to be done in the middleware, and the transformation should happen. In Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services, it's very easy to do data validation and transformation compared to any other tool."
"The fuzzy matching capability is a great feature."
 

Cons

"IBM InfoSphere MDM's UI is complicated. It also needs to improve its on-prem configuration."
"The product is really only created for large organizations."
"The tool is difficult to understand from a customer perspective and for developers."
"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."
"One thing to consider is that while Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services already integrates with AI platforms, we need to use these tools rigorously and check all these aspects, including machine learning and analytics. I feel that more work needs to be done on this aspect."
"It needs to be a little more intuitive but it’s really not bad."
"There's definitely room for improvement in terms of user-friendliness. One example is that you can't search for jobs directly by file name. You can only search by job name. So, if you want to find a job that works with a specific file, you have to go through each job individually to find the right one. So, I'd like to see a faster search, one where I can search directly by file name."
"Informatica MDM's UI is not intuitive enough."
"Its pricing model can be improved. The response time from technical support can also be improved."
"I definitely will not recommend Informatica Cloud Data Quality because it's very hard to manage the licensing model and the price is very high."
"The UX and UI of the solution are areas with certain shortcomings where improvements can be made in the future."
"Informatica should simplify the rules for setting classifications and user access management permissions. It's too complex to define, configure, and make work."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"It may be costly for small organizations but adds value for large organizations with demanding workflows."
"Licensing is difficult to understand, but the team is always available to explain anything. They are very helpful."
"Informatica MDM is very expensive. Apart from licensing fees, they have broken down their products into multiple products, and they charge for each and every product. If the data is huge, they charge for the data. At times, we have to use third party services for data cleaning, and they charge for that as well."
"We switched to Informatica PIM because it was cheaper than the Oracle solution. It is cheaper initially, but they will bundle it later. This is what happens in the industry."
"Comparatively, their prices are a little bit too high."
"I have heard from customers that the product comes with a huge license cost."
"It's offers value for money. They're more competitive with respect to pricing and offerings."
"Informatica Cloud Data Integration is famously known for its high price. The vendor targets large enterprises, and not medium or small companies. These large companies, and organizations, handle large amounts of data. If you go into any large bank, such as American or Canadian banks, these banks use this solution because it is more reliable, secure, and has more functionality."
"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."
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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
25%
Healthcare Company
14%
Manufacturing Company
8%
Insurance Company
6%
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
10%
Computer Software Company
8%
Retailer
7%
 

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 Enterprise153
 

Questions from the Community

What do you like most about IBM InfoSphere MDM?
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. In...
What needs improvement with IBM InfoSphere MDM?
IBM InfoSphere MDM's UI is complicated. It also needs to improve its on-prem configuration.
What is your primary use case for IBM InfoSphere MDM?
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. In...
How does Azure Data Factory compare with Informatica Cloud Data Integration?
Azure Data Factory is a solid product offering many transformation functions; It has pre-load and post-load transformations, allowing users to apply transformations either in code by using Power Q...
Which Informatica product would you choose - PowerCenter or Cloud Data Integration?
Complex transformations can easily be achieved using PowerCenter, which has all the features and tools to establish a real data governance strategy. Additionally, PowerCenter is able to manage huge...
What are the biggest benefits of using Informatica Cloud Data Integration?
When it comes to cloud data integration, this solution can provide you with multiple benefits, including: Overhead reduction by integrating data on any cloud in various ways Effective integration ...
 

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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