On Cloud 9!

Apologies ...

I've been in the clouds lately, in more ways than one.  I've been on the road performing another data quality assessment on an island in the Pacific.  This translates into the fact that I'm gaining status on multiple airlines and becoming increasingly appreciative of noise canceling technologies.

I'm also gaining an appreciation for another technology, cloud based data quality solutions!  I am leveraging Informatica's latest data quality platform, IDQ v9.  IDQ v9 brings to mind a favorite 80's commercial of mine where peanut butter and chocolate are combined into one tasty treat!  For sure there is a little PowerCenter in your Data Quality and a little Data Quality in your PowerCenter ...

50,000 foot level view

I won't try to cover the upgrade in one post, but rather just wet your appetite on what's inside the wrapper.  We can binge on the details in the coming months.  For now let me just highlight what I feel are the most significant enhancements of v9.

1. Quick start solution: the cloud based solution of v9 almost eliminates the previous installation requirements of IDQ 8.x


2. Data Explorer and Data Quality are now one product: This cuts installation and repository management by 50% (at least)


3. PowerCenter integration means ETL and DQ have tied the knot!: Now you can stop using TCL & SQL scripting and leverage PowerCenter's integration components.  This includes the consolidation component, a particularly important component to master data management and customer data integration initiatives


4. Inline data viewing: now you can unit test your transforms without a full run on your mappings, saving time and increasing productivity


5. Inline data profiling: now you can report on data quality processing without leaving your development environment and share it with client via a URL!

As I mentioned, I'll dive deeper when I'm not in the middle seat of row 42 somewhere over the Pacific.  For now my big take-aways are the time-saving features that are almost everywhere and the integration with PowerCenter takes data quality integration to the next level.

No more afternoons installing client and scripting repositories.  No more SQL development to valid and analyze results.  No more TCL script (I love that!).  No more SQL consolidation nightmares!

Up to speed

As for a learning curve on the new look and feel?  It took me a few hours, of which most were productive hours I was able to leverage into real work.  Hopefully I can translate what I've learned and cut your learning curve down with posts in the coming months. For now, the drink cart is coming my way and I've got cash handy!

Check back next month when I go over how I was able to deliver more analysis in a shorter time frame and look good doing it!