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Bottom Line:
Very highly rated by analysts and users, Informatica’s data integration products are among the best in the market. PowerCenter’s claim to fame is its metadata-driven management, which provides advanced capabilities and improves ease of use. Out of the box, PowerCenter is less full-featured than some of the other data integration platforms on the market, but Informatica offers plenty of add-ons and additional software that fill in the gaps. It’s ideal for medium to large enterprises, particularly for those looking for a product that encourages collaboration between IT and business users.
See Informatica PowerCenter user reviews.
Jump to: Informatica PowerCenter Features Table
Company Description:
As an enterprise cloud data management vendor, Informatica focuses on big data, data security, data quality, data integration and master data management software. Founded in 1993, the company has its headquarters in Redwood City, California, and it has more than 3,900 employees. It boasts more than 9,000 customers, including 85 of the companies on the Fortune 100 list. Noteworthy customers include the AARP, Ace Hardware, the U.S. Air Force, BMC Software, BT, CA Technologies, the Chicago Cubs, Comcast, eBay, FannieMae, HP, Humana, Michigan State University, Nissan, PayPal, Qualcomm, Thomon Reuters, Thrifty Car Rental, Toshiba, Valero, Unilever, Verizon, Western Union and others. It processes more than 2.5 trillion cloud transactions every month.
The company was previously traded on the NASDAQ exchange under the symbol INFA. In 2015, it was acquired by Permira, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, Microsoft and Salesforce Ventures for approximately $3.5 billion. Since then, it has been privately held. Informatica’s annual revenue is more than $1 billion.
Product Description:
Informatica describes PowerCenter as “metadata-driven data integration platform.” It promises business and IT collaboration, automation, universal connectivity, rapid prototyping, scalability, automated data validation testing, advanced data transformation, operations and governance oversight, zero downtime, cloud connectivity and real-time capabilities. It comes in three different versions: Standard, Advanced (which adds high-performance optimization and a real-time engine) and Premium (which adds comprehensive automatic data validation, unstructured and semi-structure data transformations and an early warning alert system for unexpected behaviors or resource usage). The company claims that most PowerCenter users reduce IT costs by more than 40 percent and increase staff productivity by more than 40 percent.
Informatica received the highest rating and was listed in the Leaders quadrant in the most recent Gartner Magic Quadrant for Data Integration Tools and the Magic Quadrant for integration platform as a service (iPaaS). The report added, “Informatica continues to be the vendor most referenced by Gartner clients. It appears in more than 75% of the contract review calls for data integration tools and features most frequently in competitive situations on our inquiry calls.”
Features:
Deployment:
On premises or on Amazon Web Services (AWS) or Microsoft Azure
Licensing:
Proprietary
System Requirements:
The on-premises version of PowerCenter runs on Windows, Linux or AIX and requires 6 GB RAM and 10 GB disk space. Additional requirements will depend on the configuration of the software.
Connectors
PowerCenter connectors are available through an add-on called PowerExchange Connectors. It includes connectors for databases, data warehouses, Hadoop, messaging systems, enterprise applications, mainframes, midrange systems, social media networks and cloud applications. Additional add-ons are available for more cloud applications and change data capture.
Design and Development Environment:
Graphical, code-less environment
Key Capabilities
- Business and IT collaboration features
- Code-less development environment
- Automation
- Meta-driven data management
- Scalability
- Fast performance
- Zero downtime
- Universal connectivity
- Rapid prototyping, profiling and validation
- Business glossary
- Advance data transformation
- Real-time engine
- Cloud connectivity
Support and Services:
Certification, training, support and services are available.
Pricing:
AWS pricing starts at $3.50 per hour ($24,528 per year). Azure and on-premises pricing not disclosed.
Informatica PowerCenter Features Table
| Features | Informatica PowerCenter |
|---|---|
| Deployment | On premises, AWS, or Microsoft Azure |
| System Requirements | |
| Operating System | Windows, Linux, AIX |
| Processor | Depends on configuration |
| RAM | 6 GB |
| Storage | 10 GB |
| Software | Depends on configuration |
| Connectors | Available through an add-on |
| Design and Development Environment | Graphical, code-less |
| Key Capabilities | |
| ELT | Yes |
| ETL | Yes |
| CDC | Available through an add-on |
| Data Quality | No (available through other Informatica products) |
| Data Governance | No (available through other Informatica products) |
| Others | Metadata-driven management, automated data validation testing, real-time engine, machine learning |
| Support and Services | Certification, training, support, services |
| Gartner Magic Quadrant Rating | Leader |
| Price | AWS pricing starts at $3.50 per hour ($24,528 per year). Azure and on-premises pricing not disclosed. |
