SAS Data Management Reviews

Data quality and the great integration possibilities.

It's streamlined our vendor master-data approach. It has become more reliable and more efficient.

Native SAP integration or more efficient SAP is needed.

I've used it for three years.

System requirements could be clearer.

No, it is a very stable product.

No, however we spend time analyzing our system upfront.

Customer Service:

8/10.

Technical Support:

7/10.

We did, but nothing specifically for MDM.

It's straightforward and you can be up and running in a few days.

We used a mixed team.

It's less than two years.

Their software pricing offers the best value for money on the market.

Yes, we also looked at SAP MDM and Informatica.

Data integration is the difficult part of the implementation. The basic setup is quick and is very easy.

We have customers that are typically in the finance sector and include banking and insurance companies. They require us to align or integrate their existing data warehouse into all the processes that feed into the data warehouse. We clean the data and create reports for the clients. Typically, they are visual in nature and may include Excel or PowerPoint. The solution allows for a great variety of output in the reports we provide to our clients. 

The language is the most valuable feature within the solution. It's very flexible and very powerful. 

If you compare it to SQL, the memory and development times are very quick.

Trying to develop the code is very easy.

SAS Institute build its solutions starting from the basic modules of the platform. So each solution consists of these basic modules plus some dedicated parts that are usually quite small. To adapt to the market which is rapidly evolving, SAS often changes these packages or solutions. These changes can involve both the functionality and the interfaces and the names of the applications. This sometimes creates confusion among users, both end users and consultants.

I've been using this SAS solution for more than 20 years.

Excellent stability for the language and many basic component (libraries). For the newer components they need time (as usual for all software vendor).

SAS is strong scalable, I have used on very little server that during the time have grown to huge. I can say that with SAS this is not a problem.

SAS offers different levels of support. All are quite good quality. If you have a problem, they're right there to assist. We find them very useful and have been satisfied with the level of service we've received.

I've worked with Oracle in the past as well as Python and other solutions. I find SAS the most productive and reliable.

Whether the setup is straightforward or complex often depends on the model used. Some models are very easy to implement. Others are much more complex. We have team members who specialize in installation for our clients and we choose the model that will best fit with their needs.

In terms of deployment, once again, the length of time and complexity depends on the project. Some customers need an installation done on 100 servers. However, typically, within two to five days we'll have the platform up and fully functioning. It only really takes one person to handle the deployment.

We handle the implementation for our clients.

The solution is quite expensive. It's not cheap but it's very powerful. Therefore, most businesses can't afford to use this particular product. But, good news, SAS in putting on the market solutions at a more affordable price.

We're a gold partner with SAS and we typically use the latest versions of the solutions we have with them.

Most of our clients are enterprise-level organizations. Smaller companies may find using SAS difficult because the pricing is quite high.

The best advice I can give to other organizations contemplating installation is to find someone who knows the solution very well. SAS as a platform is very, very powerful but it is very complex as well. It's complicated to use properly. It's also difficult to learn the systems. If a company finds someone who understands the solution well, however, they can get a lot out of its offerings. 

No project is simple. All projects have some level of complexity in their data, so having data integration or management isn't enough. It's necessary to use code. Visual instruments are not enough. That's why SAS is great.

I'd rate the solution ten out of ten. I've worked with many other solutions in the past, but I find that, for the warehouse and BI environment, SAS is very quick, very intuitive, very, very powerful, and very valuable. I've used a huge amount of data on servers that were not good enough. Also, when you're looking at other technologies, like Python, they can be much more difficult and take more time to develop. This product, however, can work miracles. 

National Quality Knoledge Base
Matching features
QPI (Quality Performance Indicator) analysis approach

High performances in matching tool

ETL functions

Since 2012

Proprietary programming language

Not at all

No, high integration level with SAS

Customer Service:

High

Technical Support:

High

Informatica Powercenter
Lack of data quality governance features

Complex, as usual with SAS

The vendor team was from SAS, high level of expertise

High
Consider that, for Data Governance, the meaning of ROI may be Risk Of Inactions

IBM QualityStage

Data Governance needs specific tools, don't try to survive with user written codes

• In my previous employer we used the DataFlux suite of data quality, data integration and data governance solutions. It provided us cross-functional data management. • Great for ETL, CDC, data federation, RT data flow. Works with cloud and big data environments. • It enabled us to access and use data sources from across our enterprise in order to maintain a consistent set of policies for managing our data. • We had a single and unified view of our enterprise data by using its MDM component.

Costly. Not great for non-ETL use cases. Licensing model is not very flexible.

I like the fact that with DataFlux you can standardize and merge multiple records in a database such as people's names and locations. DataFlux in my opinion is an excellent high end solution for enterprise wide data management.

I am an IT specialist manager and we work within the SAS Data Management on a daily basis.

The tool is reliable, quick, and powerful.

The solution is quite expensive and hard to install/configure.

I have been using this solution for 25 years.

The platform is stable.

I think that they offer good support and have a good knowledge about the platform - especially second level reps. I have been working with them for over twenty years and am on a first name basis with some of the reps.

The initial setup is quite complex. We had one person set this up and manage it. Initial deployment can take up to five or more days depending on the level of complexity (i.e. is grid computing involved?).

The tool is a bit expensive.

Customers should have knowledge about SAS language - the basic for the platform - and SQL - in order to export the data to read from an external rational database. 

On-premises

I primarily use the solution to compare the Computer Associate of Outcome with the data management program.

The monitoring capabilities are very good.

The product offers very good flexibility.

The stability could be a bit better. It's lacking in this area right now.

The solution could use better documentation.

It would be nice if the solution offered better training and certification for the product itself to ensure people know the ins and outs of every aspect.

I've only been using the solution for a few weeks. It hasn't been that long yet.

The stability of the product is okay. However, occasionally we do face some instability issues. It's not 100% perfect in that regard.

I haven't directly dealt with technical support, however, it's my understanding that the solution should offer faster, more responsive support.

I'm not sure which company we used before we used this solution. It's my understanding, however, that they did not properly meet the client's demands and therefore we needed to find a new solution, which was this current product.

The installation was pretty straightforward. It wasn't that difficult. I wouldn't describe the process as complex.

My colleague and I can both handle deployment by ourselves. You might need as many as four people to handle deployment. We also handle maintenance and take care of some of our customers.

Typically our team handled the installation in-house. We don't need the assistance of outside consultants or integrators. We can perform the task ourselves.

I'm not sure which version of the solution we're using currently.

We have about 100 users on the solution currently.

We do plan to continue to use the product.

I would recommend the solution to other organizations. In general, I would rate the solution at a six out of ten. There are still some elements that need to be improved in future releases.

On-premises