IBM InfoSphere Optim's most valuable features include in-line masking for Oracle and Teradata, providing flexibility in data masking and process design. Users find it faster and customizable compared to traditional methods, eliminating the need to write complex sequences. It offers easy database restoration with a few clicks and maintains database linking. Additionally, its compression feature achieves approximately 80% data compression, enhancing efficiency.
- "The compression feature is valuable because it achieves around 80% compression."
- "We like that we can easily restore the database with just a few clicks. The database is linked as well."
- "I feel the solution to be a bit faster than the traditional methods, which makes it easy to customize."
IBM InfoSphere Optim needs improvements in masking processes, as the Extract-Convert-Load method is manual and time-consuming compared to in-line masking. There is a lack of direct XML masking and inability to handle BLOB, image, and PDF data. Support for IMS databases is limited, with users noting inadequate knowledge from support teams. The cost is a concern, with users finding it very expensive, especially for AWS implementation, leading them to seek alternatives.
- "While masking PII information in huge tables [more than 500 million record count with more than five PII columns present] the Extract-Convert-Load [ECL] process becomes extremely slow and can take a huge amount of time."
- "The potential room for improvement for IBM InfoSphere Optim is usually its cost, as it is too expensive."
- "We're looking for a solution that can be implemented on AWS. IBM InfoSphere Optim can be implemented on AWS, but it costs more than double what we're currently paying. So, it's not really of good value for us."
