Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) Reviews

The Knowledge Module is the most valuable feature in our experience with it.

This product can be installed on a desktop or a server to be operated. v10 has a local database that allows you to train a client for its use. This, of course, provides good knowledge transfer.

v12 has good features, but it needs to be certified with Hyperion EPM. Also, the Knowledge Module needs to be improved because it is the backbone of ODI. When we change the Knowledge Module, Oracle will not support the change in production.

There have been no issues with the deployment.

We have had no issues with the stability.

We have had scalability issues that were mainly due to a bad environment. Also, if ODI is not setup for scalability, load balancing becomes an issue.

7/10 because it is hard to find someone who has ODI knowledge on the first line of support. Oracle takes a long time to respond and to provide a fix for issues. It takes, sometimes, up to eight weeks before Oracle will say that the issue is a bug.

We previously used Informatica when it was used with Hyperion, but it is not certified for Hyperion now. ODI is less expensive, and it can be installed on a desktop or a server for implementation. With ODI, you can do transformations on the source, staging or target databases.

For me, it was straightforward if installing it on a desktop. There is more complexity when installing it on a server. Agents are involved and in v10, it was not easy to install even the agents.

We implemented it with a vendor or sub-vendor team with help from the client.

The ROI is good.

Oracle has increased the licensing price for ODI.

Before implementing or designing, please have someone familiar with the product give their input. If your network is weak, the implementation may take more time.

Heterogeneous technologies can be integrated with ODI, including the latest web services.

I feel that Oracle provides users with the best functionalities from ODI by constantly improving the functionalities in all areas.

Any IT company that relies on data coming from its clients or internal users requires data maintenance. All that collected data should be able to provide insight into the various behaviors of the clients across different platforms. For us, ODI has been key in collecting, transforming, and storing information from our various sources.

The two areas that I see for improvement would be the UI and the procedures for accessing it.

I have been using ODI for the last seven years starting with 10g. In my experience, Oracle has spent a lot of effort in improving the tool.

I never faced issues with the deployment since 11g. Oracle has made very good improvements in terms of the deployment. DBA objects take more time than the code deployment, which are the easiest and quickest ones. There is no room for errors when we have an environment in production.

We have had no issues with the stability.

There have been no issues scaling it.

5/10 - Technical support needs to be improved.

I haven't used any other solutions since this product has the potential to provide a solution for any complex requirement.

It's straightforward to set up.

We implemented it through a vendor.

I definitely recommend using this for any data warehouse project.

The ability to extract from multiple sources, the flexibility of using the Knowledge module, and the ergonomics of the GUI are the features I've found most valuable.

Before using ODI, I was forced to develop programs with multiple technologies (Java, Python) to extract data from multiple sources. Now with ODI, I just have to configure the knowledge module to perform the extraction.

I think that job scheduling can be improved.

I've used it for four years.

We've had no deployment issues.

I think that ODI 11g is very stable. I've had no issues with instability.

We've had no issues scaling it for our needs.

I have never contacted customer service or technical support of Oracle for this product. If I have a problem, I try to find a solution from the Oracle community.

I've used Microsoft, but I think that ODI is simpler to use and offers more flexibility.

The initial setup was a little complex because the architecture of the product was blurred, so I needed some weeks to understand it.

I implemented with our in-house team. You should try to have good documentation before using this product.

Their code-once-use-everywhere approach for coding data flows. Unlike other ELT solutions, ODI allows for creating scripts ("modules") which are then shared across multiple data load processes. If you find a bug, you fix it once, and it is fixed for everyone. It is the same if you need to code a new feature. It is also worth mentioning that ODI supports over a dozen of scripting languages. Chances are that your favorite language is amongst them.

The main improvement was unifying and standardizing ELT processes. For example, each table in the EDW solution has a set of standard columns used solely for auditing, data lineage and debugging purposes. Because the code to support those columns is shared across the whole solution, we are now capable of getting the auditing information for every single piece of data in the entire solution, without having to code it individually for each stream.

The GUI is Java based, and is less than friendly. It feels a little bit like being in the late 1980s when I started using it. So I would say: hey, Oracle guys! Improve the GUI. Make it more intuitive. Snappier. Sleeker.

I've used it for three years.

Not really. There were some caveats when upgrading from one major release to another but that's expected with tens of thousands of highly customized ELT streams. Nothing that could not be resolved within a day or two.

It is Oracle. So, you get what you pay for. We used their customer support once or twice (for instance, when resolving incompatibility with certain versions of the JDBC driver) and got all our issues fixed.

I used DTS/SSIS, Cognos DM, and Informatica previously. They all have their little pros and cons. For ODI, the killer feature was the shared code. Plus, the whole EDW solution is built upon Oracle databases so it simply makes sense to use Oracle ELT tool.

Well, it is certainly not the "Run the installer, click Next Next Next Next and have it up and running" kind of an install. There are many types of ODI agents that need to be installed and tweaked on uncountable number of servers so it does take a while to get the whole thing functional. It is all well documented though. Don't expect any major issues here but make sure you book enough time for the initial setup.

We have implemented this with an in-house team. The main thing is to get one or two ODI gurus into your DEV team. ODI is built with unique philosophy in mind and if you try to start implementing your solution using your past (non-ODI) knowledge, you will get into trouble very quickly.

I have no idea. I was not involved in ROI related discussions. I can assume that because the tool is extremely stable and, once correctly implemented, runs practically without supervision, it is a good investment in a long run. But that's just my private guess.

Make sure you understand differences between ETL and ELT (ODI is the latter). Have a well-structured source data. And if you don't know anything about ODI, find someone who does before diving into your data-warehouse project. You can learn SSIS or Informatica yourself in days. This approach is not going to work for ODI.

It's highly flexible, and can interface with almost any technology. One of the best ETL tools.

It has streamlined and automated data loads, and exports from our ERP system to our finance data warehouse and to Hyperion Essbase. The post-data load tie-back to the source system was also performed using this tool. The tool has also made metadata management more efficient, and automated the process from relational source to Hyperion Essbase.

I've used it for four years.

No issues encountered.

It used to crash with large datasets.

I've never had to contact them.

This is the only ETL tool I have used and never found a need to look for another. It met all our needs.

Straighforward except for DBA involvement during installation for schema creation.

The implementation was done in-house.

It's a great product.

Strong and reliable ETL tool with high performance and helpful features

Enhance export/import features and add more features (I think they enhanced it in the 12c version)

More than 3 years 11g and now start working with 12c.

Export/import isn't stable and they don't have a clear behavior.

No issues.

Developed a project on SSIS (SQLServer Integration Services), and used to write ETL in scripts (PL/SQL).

Straightforward set-up.

Go ahead it is a very good, stable and reliable product. 

 Oracle Data Integrator Enterprise Edition has advanced capabilities like loading slowly changing dimensions, complex data integration process flow logic, re-usable mappings and design-time automation through scripting.  Built-in dimensional modeling tools are included in Oracle Data Integrator to simplify Oracle Data Warehouse Integration.  Oracle Data Integrator ensures automatic detection and recycling of faulty data before insertion in the target application and is performed through data integrity rules and constraints defined both on the target application and in Oracle Data Integrator.  In order to ensure real-time data integration, Oracle Data Integration suite provides all key components required to enable real-time data warehousing and operational data hubs.

 As with any big tool, truly mastering ODI may take months.

 Oracle Data Integrator separates the declarative rules from the implementation details. It can run entirely within a Service Oriented Architecture. ODI is the most integrated ETL product for running data integration as a service, accessing web services and writing to web services as a target.