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Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) vs Microsoft MDS 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

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) (7th), Business-to-Business Middleware (3rd), 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 (1st), Metadata Management (1st), Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) (3rd), Test Data Management Services (3rd), Product Information Management (PIM) (1st), Data Observability (1st), AI Data Analysis (1st)
Microsoft MDS
Average Rating
7.4
Reviews Sentiment
7.2
Number of Reviews
23
Ranking in other categories
Master Data Management (MDM) Software (4th)
 

Featured Reviews

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.
AB
Senior Data Engineer at a insurance company with 5,001-10,000 employees
Outdated capabilities hinder data mapping efficiency but facilitate cost-free data standardization
Microsoft MDS is outdated and lacks modern capabilities. It is too slow and does not support automated mapping or AI-based functionalities. Although I created Python scripts for some machine learning libraries, we seek tools that offer AI-enabled automated mapping without custom coding. Microsoft support for MDS is also going away.

Quotes from Members

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

Pros

"Offers data lineage feature"
"The user-friendliness and performance of Informatica is quite impressive."
"We had a bad experience before Informatica Cloud Data Quality, we started a data analytics project that took more than three months of wasted time because we couldn't use the data to create the optimization model."
"It has flexibility in extending the data model."
"Stability-wise, I rate the solution a ten out of ten."
"I do a quite a lot of data transformations, and the fact that I can do them without changing any of my SQL queries from the code, using the inbuilt tools, is very helpful."
"Regarding the features, the dashboards related to data quality profiling are the most powerful tool that we are using, and the integration between EDC and the data quality is very important."
"The ability to clean out data and improve the data quality is the best feature."
"Enables non-technical people to directly interact with the BI system."
"It's very easy to use."
"The best thing about it is that it comes with the Microsoft package."
"It has been a long-standing tool in our organization since it was free."
"What I like about Microsoft, is that it has a huge database with many users."
"The most valuable feature of Microsoft MDS is its compatibility with ETL tools like SSIS, which simplifies operations for end-users."
"It is very easy to deploy and provision a machine."
"The most valuable feature is the administration console."
 

Cons

"We cannot sell the product directly with an additional layer."
"The biggest challenge I see is the IDE's for the cloud and automization are different."
"The UI is terrible and not user-friendly."
"The on-prem solution is harder to learn than the cloud-based versions."
"They could provide more robust performance for data integration processes. It would help in improving the data quality more efficiently."
"I would rate my experience with the initial setup a two out of ten, with one being difficult and ten being easy."
"The product's pricing is definitely an area where a bit of improvement is needed."
"I need to have some insight into the tool's cloud capabilities."
"From my understanding, MS, as of 2021, will not maintain the product going forward."
"The Microsoft license cost could be lower."
"JMD repositories have records that come in thousands and millions, which takes a long time to process."
"Microsoft MDS is outdated and lacks modern capabilities."
"More generic related things can be included in the services."
"The program's navigation tools could be improved."
"In the next version, I would like to see integration with Azure."
"Most of the Microsoft partners, especially digitally, are separate. Personnel are business people, and they do not have technical expertise, so you end up as a company spending a lot of money training your staff and your engineers."
 

Pricing and Cost Advice

"We pay for a yearly subscription."
"The solution's pricing model is easy, but it is very expensive."
"The platform has a premium cost. I rate the pricing as seven out of ten."
"You can purchase licenses for this solution at different intervals. For example, annually or every three years. They recently changed their terms for licensing and now it is more flexible."
"Informatica MDM's price could be lower."
"I'm not sure about the most recent pricing trends, but I don't believe it's significantly different from PowerCenter. I believe it is nearly the same."
"I rate Informatica MDM's price a six on a scale of one to ten, where one is a low price, and ten is a high price."
"it's expensive, but if you're looking for a stable solution, Informatica MDM is a good one to choose."
"Microsoft MDS is an expensive solution."
"The pricing of this solution is good."
"SAP is more expensive than Microsoft."
"Product licensing is very complicated. It would be helpful to have an online calculator to estimate the cost of a license."
"With Microsoft, we buy everything though an agreement, so we purchase volume licensing every year."
"I would like to see better pricing."
"The solution does require a license and we have enterprise licenses."
"MDS is a part of the SQL Server enterprise license. I am not aware of any additional costs."
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Answers from the Community

RT
Information Architect at Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Feb 7, 2022
Feb 7, 2022
Hi @Richard Tibbetts, There's no short answer to your question. Nearly all existing MDM solutions on the market offer a broad range of patterns to ingest master data from various sources and distribute cleanse and consolidated information, also to the Azure stack. Many vendors offer prebuilt connectors for the most common sources (databases, various file types, storages, business applications i...
2 out of 3 answers
InitZero - PeerSpot reviewer
Enterprise MDM Architect / Solution Arch at Volvo Group
Jan 14, 2022
Hi @Richard Tibbetts, There's no short answer to your question. Nearly all existing MDM solutions on the market offer a broad range of patterns to ingest master data from various sources and distribute cleanse and consolidated information, also to the Azure stack. Many vendors offer prebuilt connectors for the most common sources (databases, various file types, storages, business applications including MS Dynamics, Salesforce, etc.), but also support a generic way of ingesting/exposing data via Rest APIs, file drops, etc. MS MDS is an extension of the MS SQL server 2016. I don't know Microsoft plans to extend it, but I know that Profisee and CluedIn are very active in promoting their solutions as-built having Azure in mind and being a part of the stack. Informatica MDM has three types of offerings these days: on-prem, hosted MDM, and cloud-native option - they differ in the functionality and integration options. Obviously, there are many more MDM tools on the market particularly good in various data domains (products, customers/suppliers - so yours, multi-domain, etc). I think that you should start your MDM journey by answering which current challenges you try to solve or what new capabilities you need to enable to the organisation. Once these questions are answered and based on your organization's Enterprise Architecture principles, look for the best fitting tool. It may (or may not) be the one that fits the best into the Azure Reference Architecture. I hope this helped.
GM
Data Architect at World Vision
Feb 4, 2022
I agree with @InitZero...  I would add that there's no future roadmap for MDS and they don't have an Azure solution for it.  Since it's a free product with an SQL license, don't expect Microsoft to invest in it.   Even though we are highly dependent upon it currently I'm starting to look towards the future where we need to find a replacement - hopefully, a PaaS solution. It would be great if Microsoft came out with something in Azure but I'm not hopeful at this point.
 

Top Industries

By visitors reading reviews
Financial Services Firm
14%
Manufacturing Company
11%
Computer Software Company
8%
Retailer
7%
Financial Services Firm
13%
Manufacturing Company
12%
Computer Software Company
11%
Media Company
8%
 

Company Size

By reviewers
Large Enterprise
Midsize Enterprise
Small Business
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business51
Midsize Enterprise27
Large Enterprise153
By reviewers
Company SizeCount
Small Business9
Midsize Enterprise2
Large Enterprise15
 

Questions from the Community

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 ...
What do you like most about Microsoft MDS?
More generic related things can be included in the services.
What is your experience regarding pricing and costs for Microsoft MDS?
Microsoft MDS was pretty affordable. We implemented the solution without a problem.
What needs improvement with Microsoft MDS?
I cannot really give specifics about disadvantages. From what we have seen, speaking to customers, Microsoft MDS was sometimes a bit slow. The frustration they had was just around usability and use...
 

Also Known As

ActiveVOS, Active Endpoints, Address Verification, Persistent Data Masking
Microsoft Master Data Services, Microsoft MDM, Microsoft SQL Server Master Data Services, MS MDS
 

Overview

 

Sample Customers

The Travel Company, Carbonite
ETA a.s., Apeejay Surrendra Group, Blue Star Infotech, Rotherham Doncaster and South Humber NHS Foundation, The Sydney Children's Hospitals Network, New Belgium Brewing
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881,082 professionals have used our research since 2012.