Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) Reviews

Intelligent Cloud Services is the union of all the clouds that we use in our organization. We use a variety of solutions that are part of this service.

This product is the principal portal, and the first thing you will see is the main website. This is where you have access to all of the capabilities and functionalities that Informatica has available, and you can explore. 

Essentially, this product is the umbrella of cloud offerings that Informatica has for its customers. Some examples are Cloud Data Quality, Cloud Data Integration, and Cloud Data Profiling.

In cases where you need access to a resource that you have in your on-premises environment, you just need to implement a virtual agent. This is easy to do.

One of the most valuable features is that this service is always available. It's easy to get access because it's on the cloud.

This solution allows you to easily access and make use of information that you have in your on-premises environment.

This service could be more cost-effective.

Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services is stable. It's always available and does not have any issues.

This is a very scalable solution.

The technical support is good.

The maintenance is covered by Informatica.

The pricing model is something that can be improved. It is the same model that is used for all of the Informatica solutions.

This product is the most agile way to use all of the data capabilities and data services that you need to exploit in your company. We are happy with all of the features that it has and it is difficult to think about anything that should be added. It contains all of the capabilities that Informatica has.

My advice for anybody who is implementing this product is to have a clear roadmap of their cloud journey. Operating in the cloud and the way we work is much different than we are used to in an on-premises environment. The most important concept that people need to have clear is onboarding this kind of solution.

I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

The use case for Informatica Cloud APi and App Integration is creating service connectors or integrating applications using API calls or REST services. We interconnect different applications and can extend functionality of that integration using APIs in order to connect with third-party applications. We are partners with Informatica. 

The most valuable feature for me is the easy interface; it has a great look and feel, and the functionality is so easy. The friendly interface means we can easily create applications and integration processes to interconnect different applications.

I'd like to see a change in Informatica's pricing model. It's a common issue with Informatica in their cloud offerings. 

The solution is scalable and stable. 

The support process is good and similar to the support offered for all Informatica solutions. We have access to the portal and raise a ticket when we need to. 

The initial setup is straightforward and part of the Informatica Cloud Data Management service.

As mentioned, the pricing model needs to be improved but maintenance and deployment are included in the cost. 

I recommend this solution and rate it nine out of 10. 

My primary use case of this solution is to cleanse data quality.

This solution has allowed us to bring in data quality rules, checks, and specifications.

The most valuable feature is its friendly user interface, which makes it easier to create quality shared functionalities or quality rules.

Some capabilities from the cloud version are not included in the on-premises version, such as the ability to create dashboards that show the whole of the metrics and the metrics of quality of the information you are analyzing. I would like to see these capabilities included in the next release of the on-premises version. 

This is a stable product.

Cloud Data Quality is a scalable solution.

The support team provides great service.

The initial setup was fairly easy.

Unless the customer needs a dashboard, this solution is the best option. I would rate this solution as eight out of ten.

Our primary use case of this solution is for data integration; integrating cloud warehouse or cloud layout. Cloud Data Integration offers capabilities that didn't exist in the on-prem version. I'm the company product manager.

The mass ingestion functionality and the elasticity of the solution are great. It enables you to leverage the elasticity capability that the cloud provides. You can build a process, scale-up and leverage all the elasticity and the automatic provision the cloud has. What took 10 hours to do in the on-prem version, takes less than an hour in the cloud. It's a huge difference. The solution is designed for a cloud-native approach with native components and connectors for all the cloud-ready solutions we need nowadays.

I think the price modeling could be improved. Currently, the IPU consumption is defined on a monthly basis and if you don't use all the IPUs available in a particular month, they are lost. A more flexible pricing model is something Informatica should look at. 

The solution is scalable. 

The technical support is good, we raise the tickets in the Informatica Support Portal. 

The solution is great once you have a clear roadmap of migration to the cloud. In the cloud migration journey, it's important to be clear of the entire process.

I rate this solution nine out of 10. 

The primary use case of Informatica Cloud Data Management is to process data. In Informatica Cloud Data Management, you are in a portal where you can pick up the functionality you need to leverage and work with your data.

One of the most valuable features is that I don't need to buy a subscription for any functionality. With Informatica Cloud Data Management, I have all the functionality and features available. If I need to make an integration, I can go to that integration service. If I need to mask, provide, or clean some information, I can easily just pick up that feature and use it. It's very simple, and I have all the functions and capabilities I need to work with data. 

For example, you have data integration, data profiling, data quality, data governance, MGM, etc. You have an enterprise data catalog where you can build a central repository of all the audio, knowledge of technical data sets, or technical data assets from your company, as well as do semantic searches. 

One thing Informatica could improve is the way IPUs are used. Each customer purchases a certain amount of IPUs per month, but you can use more or less than that defined quantity. The only problem is if you don't use the all your IPUs, they don't carry over into the next month. I think customers should have the ability to transfer unused IPUs into the next month or year. This improvement could help give customers more flexibility, especially since cloud solutions need flexibility in how we use and pay for them. 

There are some features from on-premises versions of this solution that are not yet available in the cloud version. I think this is part of the roadmap that Informatica is executing for this portfolio, so not all the functionalities are ready for the cloud version of this solution. I'm sure it's just a matter of time because I know that they will be available next year. 

This solution offers the stability and uptime you need, which you can't get in on-premises installation. Informatica has a subscription-based service that can take care of maintenance, so it's easy to maintain. 

Because this is a cloud solution, it offers elasticity and scalability. 

Informatica's technical support is great, probably one of the best. Informatica has a service where you can request maintenance through their support portal. You can create tickets for any incidents or questions. Response time depends on SLA, service level argument, and can range from one hour to four hours to three days. There are different levels of support.

This is a cloud solution, so there is no setup. You pay as you go. If we need to get some information from an on-premises environment, we implement a Secure Agent. We install the agent in a virtual machine, set up the connectors to the on-premises source, and you can work with your data on the cloud. The setup process of this company is so easy because it has four steps, and then the component is up and running. It's not complicated to implement, it's very easy. 

I implemented through an in-house team. 

You pay for this solution based on IPUs, Informatica Processing Units. This depends on how much data you process and how much memory you consume from the cloud provider, and you pay as you go. 

I rate this solution a nine out of ten. If you are considering implementing Informatica, make sure you have a clearly planned approach to the cloud solution you want. Compared to on-premises solutions, there are some different capabilities you need to leverage when working in the cloud because it's a different world. You are capable of much more. You have access to all the data center servers, so you don't have to worry about memory, processing, or storage. You don't have to worry about using all your resources as efficiently because there will always have a server you can use. 

The solution is typically a bridge between business and IT. You use Axion as a tool for governance within the organization. The business people could use this tool to understand what information is being entered by IT. For example, if I'm an IT guy and if I'm using something called a column name or a table name which could be pretty technical out there, I just say, for example, BT_DT. I understand what BT_DT is, which, in this case, is birth date. That's the table name. However, the business side wouldn't really understand this. Therefore, I could actually tag BT_DT as birth date in Axon and I could relate it to this particular column and then the business side can use it from there. 

Apart from that, you could define your data governance policies, your workflows, who's going to approve the data, who's going to use the data, and who should be consuming it. It can assure that data shouldn't get out of certain boundaries. 

What I like about Axon is that typically, with all tools, you will find that there are certain limitations when it comes to the user level. However, with Axon, the limitations are not there. You could have certain people getting into Axon and things like reading, writing, or editing the policies. However, apart from those people, everyone else in the organization can still view it, so it's not restricted. There are certain people who could just edit the tool or administer the tool. That said, everyone in the organization can view what is actually happening and what they could benefit from it. That's how collaborative data governance comes into the picture with Axon. 

It has got nice integrated quality dashboards as well. 

It has the BPMN enabled or BPMN compliant workflows embedded inside it, which is great.

The solution is stable.

It doesn't need too much memory. It's being used by the business as well as the IT guys in tandem. There is something called a Marketplace that is also available. Now, when you publish something, it's is available for all the consumers out there to use within the organization. 

If I wanted to improve something, it would be the way we import or the way we design the policies. Right now, although they offer some templates, I would want more templates available to be imported.

I've been using the solution for two years or so.

The solution is very stable. there are no bugs or glitches. It doesn't crash or freeze. It's reliable. 

When you talk about scalability, this is not a very, very heavy tool. It is a tool that is typically going to fetch all the data and everything from the governance perspective. It's not actually a memory-hogging application as such.

In my previous company, there were about 100 uses on the solution.

With Informatica technical support has never been a problem. They are fantastic. If you reach out to them and raise a case, they get onto it very quickly.

We previously used an in-house solution. We did not use a different third-party solution.

The installation is okay if you follow the steps that they have provided in the guide. If a new user does that, that should be fine, however, you need a dedicated person to do that. You cannot just click through. There are various components to it. You need a specialist to do that. That said, the guides are pretty comprehensive. If you follow those, that should be fine.

In our environment, the setup was done within a day's time or a few hours - maybe four to five hours.

You need knowledge of the underlying components, such as Linux, or your big data environment, et cetera. That's where specialists can be brought in. It's recommended you take advantage of them if you can.

The license is a yearly one that can be renewed for a consecutive year. You can actually go with a three-year license as well, which will give you a better discount.

While our deployment is on-premise, you can deploy it on any cloud of your choice.

I'd rate the solution at an eight out of ten.

I would recommend the solution to other users and organizations.

Their new licensing is very flexible. With Informatica Cloud, you have plenty of items under the same umbrella, such as services, offerings, data quality, and data masking. You have also got master data management and API management. What I really like about them is that you don't need to go to Informatica and say that you need a data integration module. You would say that you need iPaaS or Informatica Cloud. They'll then try to understand your needs and give you IPUs, which are the processing units. If I purchased a hundred IPUs from Informatica as a customer, I can use 70 IPUs for data integration. I would also need data quality, so I can use 10 IPUs for data quality. I can use the remaining 20 IPUs for API management. Down the line, if I see that my initial data integration needs for the development phase are met, then out of the 70 IPUs assigned for data integration, I can use 30 IPUs for data masking. I can shuffle these numbers in any way within the Informatica Cloud umbrella for the tenure for which I have subscribed to these IPUs. I can use all services the way I want. This flexibility is what I really love about Informatica. It also has got good connectors.

The regions in which the data resides are still limited. This could be an issue in terms of the data residency laws of some of the countries. They should get more regions.

I have been using this solution for roughly three or four years, but overall, I have around 12 or 13 years of experience in data integration. It is a cloud solution, and it is managed by Informatica. We are always on its latest version.

It has been stable for us. I haven't seen any issues. They provide the upgrades and patches in a timely manner. We don't even realize that the patch has been applied. 

This is not a traditional cloud like AWS and Azure, which offer virtual machines, data storage, and compute power. With Informatica cloud, this is not the offering. You need to understand the offering. They are offering a data integration service. The scalability context here would be from the services aspect. If you want to have more data integration, you can do it instantly the way you want. You will be charged if it is beyond your subscription. They also have data quality and all the data management tools.

Its initial setup is pretty straightforward and not at all time-consuming. They just offer one simple software that communicates on your local system. You have to enter the org IDs, etc. It also doesn't require a lot of hardware.

I would definitely recommend this solution. It is definitely worth a try, and you will definitely benefit from it and see the value of implementing it in your organization. They are a leader in the Gartner Quadrants. The offerings that these guys are giving with the new licensing model, such as IPUs consumption, are excellent. You don't need to worry about what do you want to purchase. You just need to worry about the number of IPUs that you need to purchase. You can shuffle around all types of services under the same umbrella.

I would rate Informatica Cloud Data Integration an eight out of ten. It loses two points because of the region limitations.

I starting with the design and discovery phase to detect data issues by using the profiling service, then started to analyze the data to determine and fix issues with it.

This product really improves my organization and fits all of the needed requirements for working with cleansed data. This helps to prevent issues from appearing in the business layer.

The user interface is flexible and the visibility of the data flow is amazing. You can see your data throughout the flow and then you can determine where issues are before fixing them.

The tool's performance is an area that should be given further consideration.

I have been using Informatica Data Quality for more than one year.

This is a stable product.

The solution is scalable.

Technical support has been very helpful. Whenever we have a problem, they are able to solve it.

I have experience with a similar solution by IBM.

Informatica platform installation is straightforward. As long as the prerequisites check is done successfully, it will be very easy to do.