Comments on: Getting Started With Informatica PowerCenter 8.1.1

By: Ronald

Ronald — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 15:35:21 +0000

I believe IPC results in higher performance and scalability along with easier administration for data integration solutions.

I want to see how OWB will stack with IPC in its next release in creating and managing metadata for OBIEE. Not sure if at that time IPC will become extinct from OBIEE.

By: Alexis Orrego

Alexis Orrego — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 04:23:26 +0000

Los campeones solo usamos el SQL. Informatica es una herramienta muy poco intuitiva, estoy seguro que si fuera una herramienta Microsoft sería mas amistosa con el usuario. Personalmente trabajo para construccion de DataMarts y en muchas ocasiones solo la usamos para mover algunos datos y el trabajo duro se lo lleva una PL que es gatillada desde un mapping. Usen SQL.

By: Bharadwaj V

Bharadwaj V — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 09:58:33 +0000

Very nice comparison between the two. I have worked on both and can safely say that both have their advantages and disadvantages.
While I found OWB easier to pick up as a tool, Informatica has a lot of functinality which makes it more flexible. Yes, they are both similar in many ways too which is why I found it easy to switch between them.

Birdy

By: Mark Rittman

Mark Rittman — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 21:03:33 +0000

Hi SL,

I’m pretty sure (as in I was sitting with one of the Oracle Business Development Managers, and a large Systems Integrator practice manager when I read your comment) that Informatica is *only* licensed for the loading of the BI Apps DW. This also probably applies to the Merant ODBC drivers as well, they constantly bring up warning messages as you use them to say they’re only licensed for loading BI Apps. I’d check this very carefully as I think you were given incorrect information.

regards, Mark

By: SL

SL — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 11:42:27 +0000

It’s worth noting at this point that Informatica PowerCenter, as provided by the BI Apps, is licensed only for loading the BI Apps data warehouse, you can’t use it for anything else, so what I’m doing here is only just for learning, you can’t adopt PowerCenter as your general ETL tool unless you go out an license it for general use.

Hi Mark,

It was my understanding from talking to an Oracle rep that provided you have the licenses for the BI Apps, that you can load any data using Informatica provided that either the source or target data comes from an Oracle product. SAP (source) to Oracle DB that’s not OBAW(target) is OK. SAP to DB2, not OK.

That’s my understanding but I’d welcome clarification from anyone else.

Thanks,
SL

By: Stan

Stan — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 08:56:47 +0000

Nice comparison between OWN and PowerCenter. I never developed mappings with OWB but have some years experience with Informatica PowerCenter. It seems that both tools have their pros and contras.

Personally I think Informatica PowerCenter could be more intuitive: the GUI sometimes lacks some consistency and clearity. Although the tool itself does its job very well, there are some improvements to make.

E.g. when having a large Repository with hundreds of mappings in multiple folders, it’s sometimes hard to search dependencies between mappings and sources. A more Google like search with cached indexes of objects in mappings etc. would be more than welcome.

Looking forward to a next post of your experiences.

Regards,

Stan.