InfoSphere Information Server vs SAS Data Management

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Our analysts compared InfoSphere Information Server vs SAS Data Management based on data from our 400+ point analysis of ETL Tools, user reviews and our own crowdsourced data from our free software selection platform.

SAS Data Management Software Tool

Product Basics

InfoSphere Information Server is a data integration powerhouse designed to unify information across complex, diverse systems. It excels at extracting, transforming, and loading data (ETL/ELT) for tasks like building data warehouses, powering analytics, and driving business insights. Best suited for large enterprises with demanding data needs and dedicated IT resources, InfoSphere boasts robust features like comprehensive data source/target connectors, powerful transformation tools, and advanced governance capabilities. User feedback highlights its scalability, security, and job automation as key benefits. However, its complexity and steep learning curve can be daunting for smaller setups. Additionally, the high licensing costs and resource-intensive nature might dissuade budget-conscious organizations. Compared to other data integration tools, InfoSphere leans towards high-volume, mission-critical scenarios, while alternative options might offer simpler setups or cater to broader use cases. Choosing the right fit depends on individual needs and priorities. Ultimately, InfoSphere Information Server shines when organizations need a robust, feature-rich platform to conquer complex data challenges, even at the cost of increased upfront investment and initial learning hurdles.

Pros
  • Powerful ETL & ELT capabilities
  • Wide range of data sources & targets
  • Job scheduling & monitoring
  • Data quality & transformation tools
  • Scalable & secure architecture
Cons
  • Steep learning curve & complexity
  • High licensing costs
  • Limited out-of-the-box connectors
  • Performance bottlenecks with large datasets
  • Resource-intensive for deployment & maintenance
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SAS Data Management empowers organizations to wrangle their data, from ingestion and cleansing to transformation and governance. It excels at handling mountains of complex data, making it ideal for industries like finance, healthcare, and government. Key benefits include streamlined data integration, enhanced data quality, and robust security controls. Popular features include its drag-and-drop interface, automation capabilities, and advanced analytics tools. User experiences suggest it can be powerful for data wranglers but might have a steeper learning curve compared to simpler options. Pricing is typically per seat or core, with annual subscriptions or perpetual licenses available.

Pros
  • Robust for large datasets
  • Scalable & high performance
  • Advanced data manipulation
  • Automate complex tasks
  • Strong statistical analysis
Cons
  • Steep learning curve
  • Costly licensing & maintenance
  • Limited visual analytics
  • Not user-friendly interface
  • Difficult to debug code
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$20,000 Annually
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$300 Monthly
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Product Assistance

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Product Insights

  • Unified Data Landscape: Break down data silos and seamlessly integrate information from diverse sources, including databases, applications, and cloud platforms, providing a holistic view for improved decision-making.
  • Enhanced Data Quality: Ensure data accuracy and consistency through powerful cleansing, standardization, and transformation tools, minimizing errors and boosting trust in your data assets.
  • Streamlined Data Movement: Automate and orchestrate data movement using flexible ETL/ELT workflows, speeding up data delivery and reducing manual effort for critical business processes.
  • Powerful Data Transformation: Manipulate and enrich data to meet specific needs through a comprehensive set of transformation functions, unlocking its full potential for analytics and reporting.
  • Scalable and Secure Architecture: Handle large data volumes and complex integrations with confidence thanks to a robust and secure architecture, ensuring uninterrupted data flow and safeguarding sensitive information.
  • Improved Operational Efficiency: Automate routine data tasks, reduce IT workload, and optimize resource utilization, freeing up staff and resources for higher-value activities.
  • Enhanced Data Governance: Implement data governance policies and ensure compliance with regulations through features like lineage tracking and access controls, fostering data transparency and responsible usage.
  • Greater Business Agility: Respond rapidly to changing data needs and support new initiatives with agile data integration capabilities, empowering faster time-to-market and increased business flexibility.
  • Improved Collaboration and Decision-Making: Foster greater collaboration across teams by providing everyone with access to reliable and consistent data, leading to better informed decisions and data-driven strategies.
  • Reduced Integration Costs: Streamline data management processes, eliminate data redundancies, and optimize infrastructure usage by consolidating data integration needs into a single platform, potentially leading to cost savings.
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  • Faster, Deeper Insights: SAS Data Management streamlines data preparation, reducing time spent wrangling data and freeing you to focus on analysis. Dive into complex datasets faster with automated tasks, data quality checks, and efficient transformation tools.
  • Unify Data from Anywhere: Break down data silos and gain a holistic view with seamless access across diverse sources. Connect to databases, cloud platforms, and data lakes with ease, regardless of format or location.
  • Empower Business Users: Equip non-technical users with self-service tools for data discovery and exploration. Drag-and-drop interfaces and intuitive wizards make data manipulation accessible, fostering data-driven decision-making across the organization.
  • Boost Efficiency and Productivity: Automate repetitive tasks and simplify complex workflows with SAS Data Management's powerful scripting language. Eliminate manual processes and free up time for higher-value analysis, boosting team productivity.
  • Build Trustworthy Data: Ensure data quality and compliance with comprehensive governance features. Track data lineage, maintain audit trails, and apply robust security measures to build trust in your data and its insights.
  • Unleash the Power of AI and Machine Learning: Integrate AI and machine learning capabilities directly into your data pipelines. Cleanse data with intelligent algorithms, identify hidden patterns, and generate predictive models, all within the SAS Data Management platform.
  • Scale with Confidence: SAS Data Management scales seamlessly to meet your growing data needs. Handle large and complex datasets efficiently, whether on-premises or in the cloud, with robust infrastructure and performance optimization tools.
  • Future-proof Your Data Strategy: Stay ahead of the curve with SAS Data Management's continuous innovation. Access cutting-edge technologies like in-memory analytics and cloud-native capabilities to adapt to the evolving data landscape.
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  • Data Integration: Collect, transform and share large amounts of complex data assets across the organization. Reduce development time, and scale flexibly by leveraging built-in data transformation functions. Deliver data in real time to business applications in bulk, virtually or through change data capture (CDC). 
  • Data Quality: Cleanse and validate data — in batches and real time — then load it into analytical views for consistent monitoring. Establish data quality metrics across the organization by reusing these data views. Ensure consistent information organization-wide by linking related records across systems. 
    • Business Glossary: Create a single source of truth – consolidate disparate data into unique, reliable records and load into repositories and master data applications. Share insights with confidence powered by complete access to proof of lineage and data quality. A centralized hub maintains data governance rules. 
  • Information Governance Catalog: Empower data scientists and analysts to explore and analyze business data in compliance with enterprise governance standards. Create, manage and share a common business language, design and apply rules and track data lineage. Extend on-premise governance investment to the cloud by integrating with IBM Watson Knowledge Catalog. 
  • Metadata Repository: Share imported metadata and other assets in any server component across. the organization. Stores project configurations, reports and results for all the server’s components in one unified repository 
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  • Integrated Development Environment (IDE): Access source systems virtually and create target structures. Manage processes with an intuitive, point-and-click, role-based GUI – import and export metadata functions and run ETL and ELT process flows. Supports interactive debugging and testing of jobs with full log access. 
    • Unified Architecture: Leverage the complete data pipeline — from data quality to data federation — in one platform. Ensure data transparency and accountability with auditing tools and source data lineage. 
  • Process Designer: Build and update data management processes with a visual, end-to-end event designer. Control and run data integration tasks and fork jobs to execute in parallel. Run shell scripts by calling REST and SOAP web services. 
  • Embeddable Data Quality: Access customizable business rules within batch, near-time and real-time processes and reuse as needed. Identify incomplete, ambiguous and inaccurate data with its interactive GUI. Get alerts for when data quality falls below acceptable standards. Supports data cleansing in native languages for more than 38 regions globally. 
  • Data Transformation: Build data warehouses, data marts, and BI and analytic data stores by pulling data from multiple sources. Extract required data with more than 300 out-of-the-box SQL-based transforms. Reuse transform functions in different projects and environments through custom exits, message queues and web services. 
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Product Ranking

#32

among all
ETL Tools

#43

among all
ETL Tools

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Analyst Rating Summary

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84
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Data Delivery
Metadata Management
Platform Security
Workflow Management
Data Quality
Data Delivery
Metadata Management
Performance and Scalability
Platform Capabilities
Platform Security

Analyst Ratings for Functional Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

InfoSphere Information Server
SAS Data Management
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Data Delivery Data Quality Data Sources And Targets Connectivity Data Transformation Metadata Management Platform Capabilities Workflow Management 100 99 94 95 100 0 100 100 94 84 97 100 100 92 0 25 50 75 100
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we're gathering data
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Analyst Ratings for Technical Requirements Customize This Data Customize This Data

we're gathering data
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User Sentiment Summary

Good User Sentiment 80 reviews
Great User Sentiment 99 reviews
77%
of users recommend this product

InfoSphere Information Server has a 'good' User Satisfaction Rating of 77% when considering 80 user reviews from 3 recognized software review sites.

86%
of users recommend this product

SAS Data Management has a 'great' User Satisfaction Rating of 86% when considering 99 user reviews from 4 recognized software review sites.

4.0 (21)
4.2 (18)
n/a
4.6 (17)
4.6 (27)
4.6 (29)
3.1 (32)
4.0 (35)

Awards

SelectHub research analysts have evaluated InfoSphere Information Server and concluded it earns best-in-class honors for Workflow Management.

Workflow Management Award

we're gathering data

Synopsis of User Ratings and Reviews

Powerful Data Handling: Handles complex ETL/ELT processes and diverse data sources (relational, flat files, cloud platforms) with ease, streamlining data movement and integration.
Enhanced Data Quality: Ensures data accuracy and consistency through robust cleansing, validation, and transformation tools, boosting trust and reliability in data insights.
Scalability and Security: Supports large data volumes and complex integrations with confidence, safeguarding sensitive information through granular access controls and encryption.
Job Automation and Monitoring: Automates data pipelines and workflows, reducing manual effort and simplifying task management with comprehensive monitoring capabilities.
Improved Operational Efficiency: Centralizes data integration processes, eliminates data silos, and frees up IT resources for higher-value tasks, leading to cost savings and increased productivity.
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Streamlined Workflow: Simplifies data management tasks with drag-and-drop interface and automated processes, saving time and improving efficiency.
Robust Data Quality: Ensures data accuracy and consistency through comprehensive cleaning, validation, and transformation tools, fostering trust in data-driven decisions.
Scalability and Performance: Handles large datasets efficiently with parallel processing and optimized algorithms, enabling complex analyses without performance bottlenecks.
Extensive Integrations: Connects seamlessly with various data sources and analytics platforms, facilitating a holistic view of data across the organization.
Regulatory Compliance: Supports secure data governance and auditability for meeting industry regulations, providing peace of mind and reducing compliance risks.
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Steep Learning Curve: Complex interface and feature-rich platform require significant training and expertise, even for experienced data professionals.
High Cost of Ownership: Licensing fees, maintenance, and potential hardware/infrastructure upgrades can make it a costly solution for smaller organizations or simpler data needs.
Limited Out-of-the-Box Connectors: May require custom development or third-party tools for integration with certain data sources or applications, increasing implementation complexity and costs.
Performance Bottlenecks: Can experience slowdowns or scalability issues with very large datasets or intricate ETL/ELT processes, demanding careful optimization and resource allocation.
Limited Cloud-Native Functionality: Core features are primarily designed for on-premises deployments, with cloud options requiring additional setup and configuration, potentially hindering agility and flexibility.
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Cost and Licensing: Requires significant upfront investment and ongoing licensing fees, making it less accessible to smaller organizations or budget-constrained projects.
Steep Learning Curve: Complex interface and proprietary language can be challenging for users without prior SAS experience, requiring dedicated training and support.
Limited Open-Source Integration: Primarily focused on its own ecosystem, with limited compatibility and integration with open-source tools and platforms.
Black-Box Nature: Limited transparency into internal algorithms and processes can make troubleshooting and debugging complex issues challenging.
Vendor Lock-in: Switching to other data management solutions can be difficult and costly due to data dependencies and lack of standard export formats.
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User reviews of InfoSphere Information Server paint a picture of a powerful data integration tool, capable of handling complex tasks and diverse data sources. Admiration for its robust ETL/ELT capabilities, data quality tools, and secure architecture echoes frequently, with users citing improved data accuracy and streamlined data movement as major benefits. Automation features and job monitoring are also praised for boosting operational efficiency and freeing up resources. However, the praise comes with caveats. The steep learning curve and demanding resource requirements are consistent gripes, making InfoSphere a better fit for larger organizations with dedicated IT expertise and infrastructure. The high cost of ownership, including licensing, maintenance, and potential hardware upgrades, further strengthens this point. Additionally, the limited out-of-the-box connectors and potential performance bottlenecks with massive datasets are concerns for some users. Compared to competitors, InfoSphere shines in its scalability and security, catering to high-volume, mission-critical scenarios. However, users also acknowledge the presence of simpler, more user-friendly options that might be better suited for smaller setups or less complex data needs. Ultimately, the choice boils down to individual priorities. If data volume, security, and advanced features are paramount, InfoSphere stands out, despite its demanding nature. But for those seeking a smoother learning curve or broader use cases, other solutions might offer a better fit. In essence, user reviews reveal InfoSphere Information Server as a powerful tool for complex data challenges, but its strengths come with a price tag and learning curve. Carefully evaluating data needs and priorities is crucial before choosing this data integration powerhouse.

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User reviews of SAS Data Management paint a nuanced picture. Fans praise its streamlined workflow, robust data quality tools, and scalability for handling massive datasets. They appreciate its seamless integration with various data sources and analytics platforms, enabling a holistic view and fostering trust in data-driven decisions. Regulatory compliance support is another major plus, offering peace of mind and reducing risks. However, critics point to the hefty price tag and complex licensing structures as major barriers, especially for smaller companies or budget-constrained projects. The steep learning curve can be daunting for new users, requiring dedicated training and potentially slowing down productivity. Limited open-source integration and a closed-ecosystem nature restrict flexibility and collaboration with external tools. The black-box nature of its algorithms can also make troubleshooting and debugging difficult. Some users feel locked in due to data dependencies and non-standard export formats, making transitioning to other solutions costly and cumbersome. Ultimately, SAS Data Management's strengths in robust data handling, scalability, and compliance shine for organizations with complex data needs and strict regulations. However, its high cost, limited open-source compatibility, and steep learning curve make it less ideal for smaller companies or those seeking greater flexibility and affordability. Users weighing options should carefully consider their specific needs and resources before making a decision.

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