Vice President --Analytics & Digital Transformation at Polestar Solutions & Services India Pvt Ltd
MSP
Top 5Leaderboard
Easy to install onto any server
Pros and Cons
  • "The product's initial setup phase was not complex. The tool is easy to install onto any of the servers, and you can integrate it."
  • "The product's high costs can be an area of concern where improvements are required."

What is our primary use case?

I use the solution in my company for data integrations and building a data warehouse or data lake. It is mainly used for the integration of common data services. The tool gets used based on the requirements related to the data lake or data warehouse, which were needed by Informatica.

Informatica PowerExchange is used in our organization for the integration of some of the planning tools.

What needs improvement?

The product's functionality attached to the logs is an area of concern where improvements are required. Sometimes, the product takes time to identify certain gaps in scenarios where pipelines are broken. The product fails to provide clear visibility to help users maintain the pipelines, making it an area where improvements are required.

The product's high costs can be an area of concern where improvements are required.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using Informatica PowerExchange for a couple of years. My company takes care of the implementation of the product for our clients.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution. It is one of the most trustworthy products in terms of data integration.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

Improvement is required in the product since it should provide users with more visibility in terms of log maintenance so that the developers can easily identify the need to monitor the pipelines, whether the pipelines are broken, and if it is easy to configure certain pipelines while being able to identify the performance offered. The aforementioned areas should be easily identifiable to avoid bottlenecks during the processing phase.

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What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

The product offers good scalability. The scalability features are supported as the product is available on the cloud

Hardly one or two people from my company's customer list use the product. There are very few people who use the features provided by Informatica PowerExchange since most cloud services nowadays have their own native tools.

How are customer service and support?

My company doesn't have to communicate with the product's support team since we have expertise related to the tool.

How was the initial setup?

The product's initial setup phase was not complex. The tool is easy to install onto any of the servers, and you can integrate it.

The deployment process includes steps like identifying how much capacity the tool would require, dataflows, the kind of services required, and the platforms on which you need certain services.

The solution is deployed on the cloud.

The time required to deploy the solution depends on the kind of servers users want to use with the product. Sometimes, the deployment needs to be planned out properly when you need more servers in your environment. If you have to deal with only simple use cases in your company, you just need to install the product onto any of your servers or nodes and run it in your environment. If you need to deal with simple or straightforward use cases, the product can be deployed in your environment in a day or two. Depending on whether you need to deal with simple or complex use cases, the product's deployment process may take time, as multiple products need to be integrated with the server on which Informatica PowerExchange is deployed.

What about the implementation team?

An admin from Informatica's team is required to help our company with the installation process. An integrator or consultant would be required to take care of the product's installation process.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

Many users don't prefer to use the product, considering the high costs attached to the licensing part of the solution.

What other advice do I have?

The product helped streamline our company's batch data processing workflow in a good way since it provides us with all the information, consisting of details like what kind of configurations need to be carried out, which can help maintain the pipelines that connect two different systems and the area from where you can push data from point A to point B.

The problem is not attached to the solution's ability to provide support and have the ability to respond to security threats, but it's terms from the fact that Trend Micro is more focused on Apex One. When you contact Trend Micro for Worry-Free Services Suites, the type of support provided for the product is similar to the one provided to those who possess some basic licenses. In general, it takes a lot of time to get a response from the product's support team when you face any problems.

The product supports our company's data governance because it is an established solution in the market that supports all the cloud-based features. The product supports features that allow the distribution of data across nodes. The product also offers high performance and supports high scalability features. The tool attempts to follow some of the best practices through the development to ensure how the design has been implemented. The tool also looks at the best features that you will implement during the designing phase in the development process. The tool looks into the configurations from the hardware point of view. The tool considers factors like how much configuration is required based on the capacity and requirements of users. The product follows best practices in areas like hardware and design.

To those who plan to use the solution, I suggest that they look into the prices and the use cases they want to handle on the cloud. Informatica offers an old product named Informatica PowerCenter, which was the renowned and standard product preferred by clients considering its availability at a global level. The marketing of Informatica PowerExchange has not been done properly, owing to which people are not aware of its existence in the market.

The data quality part of the solution is more about the design and not about the product. The tool has the capability to support the data quality features, and it is something that is taken care of from the design and development point of view. You can implement data quality to figure out how to design or handle the best practices in the solution. There should be a focus on the design and development part of the solution since the product has a lot of capabilities.

I rate the overall tool a nine out of ten.

Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer
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Mohamed Elkady - PeerSpot reviewer
Sr.Manager - Data Management & Data Governance at a tech company with 201-500 employees
Real User
Top 20
Powerful real-time capabilities, but it lacks failover and high availability
Pros and Cons
  • "The main benefit of PowerExchange is its native real-time capabilities. Competing tools are counting on third-party packages or Oracle to offer real-time capabilities. However, Informatica has a native ability to scan the data on the file system level and capture the changes almost instantly when I push it to the consumers. The solution has a powerful built-in replication engine."
  • "The major shortcoming of PowerExchange is high availability and failover. None of the versions we've used to date have had the out-of-the-box ability to enable failover and high-availability requirements. This is a significant challenge and risk."

What is our primary use case?

We use PowerExchange for operational analytics. Some customers need us to collect data events in real time and push them into some central place like an operational hub or database and build insights on top of it. It gives us business insights into whatever is happening in the organization in real time.

We have around 20 to 30 engineers enabled on the real-time and PowerExchange products.

What is most valuable?

The main benefit of PowerExchange is its native real-time capabilities. Competing tools are counting on third-party packages or Oracle to offer real-time capabilities. However, Informatica has a native ability to scan the data on the file system level and capture the changes almost instantly when I push it to the consumers. The solution has a powerful built-in replication engine.

What needs improvement?

The major shortcoming of PowerExchange is high availability and failover. None of the versions we've used to date have had the out-of-the-box ability to enable failover and high-availability requirements. This is a significant challenge and risk.

PowerExchange's engine also lacks support for some data types. We are capturing data in a raw format, and there are also some data types like XML structure or big objects that are still hosted, so there are sometimes problems importing data. If it's not supported, you won't be able to build your scenario. Those are two main challenges that hopefully will be covered with any subsequent or new releases.

For how long have I used the solution?

We've been using Informatica PowerExchange for seven or six years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

PowerExchange's performance is great. The stability is acceptable. Sometimes it fails because of a high resource load, but it's adequate. 

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

PowerExchange isn't flexible in terms of scalability. This is the nature of the product. For example, you cannot run multiple instances in high availability or active mode. 

How are customer service and support?

Informatica support is good. They are helpful whenever we have a challenge that requires a custom fix.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

We work with various solution vendors. For example, we use IBM Confluent for messaging and streaming, Tibco for application and data integration, etc.

I would compare PowerExchange to Oracle GoldenGate for real-time integration. GoldenGate consumes more resources from CPU and memory, but it's more stable, and the performance benchmark is higher.

The investment is bigger than Informatica. Informatica is moving to the cloud, so the investment required for real-time stuff and on-prem integration is not like before. I always compare to GoldenGate when choosing a technical solution. They're doing quite well in real-time integration.

How was the initial setup?

Deploying PowerExchange is average. It's not an easy GUI-based setup, but it's not that complicated, either. It requires some effort, but I wouldn't say it's difficult. The installation took a few days, but full end-to-end implementation takes around a month.

It requires some maintenance because there is no automatic failover and high availability. If it crashes, a qualified engineer has to take care of the instance and turn it on again or manually intervene to start it on a new machine. 

What about the implementation team?

We did it by ourselves. Our team has qualified engineers who can handle the implementation. Some issues required hotfixes from Informatica, and they were cooperating as much as they could.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The cost of PowerExchange is reasonable. It does not rely on complicated formulas or unrealistic equations. The pricing model is straightforward. There is one component, and real-time integration is included. Some other solutions require purchasing additional modules or third-party plugins for this capability.

At the same time, you can't just consider the cost of the license. You also need to dedicate a lot of resources and provide real-time support. It's a journey that must be assessed from different angles, including licensing, maintenance after deployment, operational headaches, etc.  You need to calculate the investment from different angles.

What other advice do I have?

I rate PowerExchange seven out of 10. My advice to people considering PowerExchange is that you need to have a strong business case to justify investing in a real-time solution. 

It has to bring value to the organization because it's not a straightforward journey. Real-time implementation creates a lot of operational headaches. You have to take care of everything to run in real time. You have to run patches and ETLs every hour, every two hours, or every morning.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Integrator
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Buyer's Guide
Informatica PowerExchange
May 2024
Learn what your peers think about Informatica PowerExchange. Get advice and tips from experienced pros sharing their opinions. Updated: May 2024.
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Liana Iuhas - PeerSpot reviewer
CEO at Quark Technologies SRL
Real User
Top 5
Easy to work with, fast, and very stable
Pros and Cons
  • "The transformation work called for Informatica PowerExchange. It was easy to work with this and very stable."
  • "Integration with the largest number of databases and other systems would be important."

What is our primary use case?

We work with Informatica PowerExchange for a very big trial for data warehousing and loading data for various systems. They work off transformation, creating a data warehouse. We also made part of the administration for that client. 

What is most valuable?

They wanted to load data continuously, so the jobs were run twenty-four hours per day because the volume of data was huge. The big transformations were made in a data warehouse for this project and it was very fitting to do this. So the transformation work called for Informatica PowerExchange. It was easy to work with this and very stable.

What needs improvement?

Integration with the largest number of databases and other systems would be important. We worked a lot with this ETL tool and in my opinion, it is the best on the market and what we missed in Informatica, compared with ETL. For example, each component in parallel with a configurable parallel made on the same machine or even on different machines. It's that kind of thing that I don't think Informatica PowerExchange can provide at this moment. In Informatica PowerExchange we ran jobs in parallel but not components with a parallel degree.

How are customer service and technical support?

We had two or three training meetings at the time it was set up with Informatica and after that, we kept the link with them so in case we had any issue, we could ask them. The support was very good.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

The setup was straightforward and not very complex.

What other advice do I have?

I would rate Informatica PowerExchange at a nine on a scale of ten. I would recommend it. I would not rate it a ten because I have seen better tools.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer
PeerSpot user
Director Technology at a computer software company with 10,001+ employees
Real User
Good connectivity to legacy data sources, but it needs better implements for working with big data
Pros and Cons
  • "The most valuable feature is connectivity to data sources."
  • "Technical support can be improved with respect to delays in ticket response time."

What is our primary use case?

I am a solution architect and PowerExchange is one of the products that I work with. It is used for data integration and we use it to bring together all of the data from our legacy systems.

What is most valuable?

The most valuable feature is connectivity to data sources. I leverage everything in terms of connectors to big data such as DBMS, RDBMS, and conversion to COBOL format. 

What needs improvement?

Saving a COBOL Copybook can be difficult and it would be nice if it were simplified. The complexity arises when we use recursive statements and redefined classes.

Technical support can be improved with respect to delays in ticket response time.

I would like to see more implements for big data including ORC file support. This is what most of our clients are now demanding.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been working with Informatica PowerExchange for approximately five years. More generally, I have worked with Informatica products for between 10 and 12 years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

This has been a wonderful product and we have had no trouble with stability.

How are customer service and technical support?

We have been in contact with technical support and there have been delays in terms of responding to tickets. Overall, I would rate support as average.

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

I have also used Informatica PowerCenter and the main difference is that PowerExchange is mainly cloud-hosted. People can access it from anywhere.

What other advice do I have?

The suitability of this tool depends on the client and their needs. Based on their requirements, this is certainly a solution that I would recommend. For example, if their teams are really diversified and they need a quick solution in terms of integration then this is the right product for them.

So far, I have found this product to be good. That said, we did face some difficulties with respect to data connections where we needed a real-time feed to be consumed.

I would rate this solution a seven out of ten.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: My company has a business relationship with this vendor other than being a customer: Implementer
PeerSpot user
RajeevKumar9 - PeerSpot reviewer
Software Test Automation Engineer at Atradius
Real User
Top 10
Enables us to retrieve and share data from a variety of systems but it could be more user-friendly
Pros and Cons
  • "The solution can connect to different systems i.e. mainframe, IMS or AS/400 Legacy Systems."
  • "The solution could be made more user-friendly. The configurations are also quite difficult."

What is our primary use case?

The solution can connect to different systems i.e. mainframe, IMS or AS/400 Legacy Systems.

What is most valuable?

The target system is Legacy Systems.

What needs improvement?

The solution could be made more user-friendly. The configurations are also quite difficult.

For how long have I used the solution?

I have been using this solution for a few years.

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

It is a stable solution.

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

It is a scalable solution depending on the environment which it is hosted.

How was the initial setup?

The initial setup was a little difficult to configure.

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

An annual package license fee is required.

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

On-premises
Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
PeerSpot user
Solution Leader at HORSA
Real User
Top 5
It is not a very stable solution, but it works with Salesforce
Pros and Cons
    • "I would like the stability to improve."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use it for referral calls with Salesforce.

    What needs improvement?

    I would like the stability to improve.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I've used the solution for about a month.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    The product is unstable, but I don't know if it's because of the browser or the tool itself.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    There are about 10,000 users in my organization using the solution.

    What other advice do I have?

    I didn't like the solution very much. It is the cloud version, so maybe that's why it's a little complicated to understand.

    I rate Informatica PowerExchange a five out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    Public Cloud
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
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    PeerSpot user
    Solution Integration and Implementation Manager at a comms service provider with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    Easy to use with a good user interface and good performance
    Pros and Cons
    • "The user interface and user experience are perfectly all right."
    • "Informatica is very expensive in all aspects, so the pricing is something that could be improved."

    What is our primary use case?

    We use Informatica PowerExchange for all of our ETL and data warehousing tasks. 

    PowerExchange is something to be used in conjunction with Hadoop. It provides the native features and you can connect to the HDFS system.

    What is most valuable?

    The performance when doing data transformations is good.

    The user interface and user experience are perfectly all right.

    What needs improvement?

    Informatica is very expensive in all aspects, so the pricing is something that could be improved.

    We are using many other tools for data ingestion that are part of the Apache family, NiFi. When we see that we have some challenges we then use other tools.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    We have been using PowerExchange for about two years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    This is a very stable solution and we use it on a daily basis.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    This is a scalable solution. My team is the only one in the company who uses it daily, and there are approximately 10 people in the group.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    We have not been in touch with Informatica technical support for this solution. However, we have dealt with them in relation to other products. I would rate them a seven or eight out of ten. Overall, they are pretty good.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    We did not use a similar solution prior to this one.

    How was the initial setup?

    The initial setup and deployment were very simple for us. It takes approximately a week's time to complete.

    Our development team manages the environment.

    What about the implementation team?

    The implementation was done primarily by our own team members. We did have a contracting company who helped us with this, and they formally interact with Informatica.

    What other advice do I have?

    I would say that this is one of the best tools for any data ingestion mechanism. It has tremendous capabilities for data movement from one environment and multiple environments, and it can also be used for providing API services.

    I would rate this solution a nine out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
    IT Architect at a financial services firm with 10,001+ employees
    Real User
    Good functionality, easy to scale, and the technical support is good
    Pros and Cons
    • "This product is easy to install and it can be done in a few hours."
    • "I would like to have easier integration with cloud platforms."

    What is most valuable?

    The most valuable features are functionality and support.

    What needs improvement?

    I would like to have easier integration with cloud platforms.

    For how long have I used the solution?

    I have been using PowerExchange for a few years.

    What do I think about the stability of the solution?

    This is a stable solution.

    What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

    PowerExchange is easy to scale. We have about 20 users, who are mostly developers.

    How are customer service and technical support?

    We are very happy with the technical support.

    Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

    I have used a number of similar solutions including other Informatica products such as Enterprise Data Catalog and PowerCenter.

    How was the initial setup?

    This product is easy to install and it can be done in a few hours.

    What other advice do I have?

    Overall, it is good and I recommend it, but it still has gaps in terms of functionality.

    I would rate this solution an eight out of ten.

    Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

    On-premises
    Disclosure: I am a real user, and this review is based on my own experience and opinions.
    PeerSpot user
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