Informatica Cloud To Add Data Quality, Community, Real-Time Integration 
Informatica Corp. is preparing to ship an upgrade to its Informatica Cloud self-service cloud data integration product. Informatica Cloud Winter 2012 adds simplicity and reliability with wizard-driven contact validation for better data quality, community sharing of cloud connectors, and real-time integration with Salesforce.com and Force.com
Informatica Corp. is preparing to ship an upgrade to its Informatica Cloud self-service cloud data integration product. Informatica Cloud Winter 2012 adds simplicity and reliability with wizard-driven contact validation for better data quality, community sharing of cloud connectors, and real-time integration with Salesforce.com and Force.com
IDN talks with Informatica Cloud’s vice president Darren Cunningham to learn about the company’s upcoming offering, and discuss how cloud integration is powering “hybrid IT,” a strategic push to marry on-premise and cloud into a fully-integrated fabric.
Preview Informatica Cloud Winter 2012
Cloud integration has become a crucial solution for tying together SaaS applications, such as Salesforce.com, with on-premise applications and data, Cunningham said. But, beyond that, within some enterprises there are signs that cloud integration is becoming more strategic to IT.
“Cloud integration is already seen as a crucial technology for enterprises who want to bring disparate data into the cloud or SaaS from on-premise and outside services,” Cunningham told IDN. “But, we’re also seeing cloud integration get lots more attention from CIOs and other execs looking at strategic types of ‘hybrid IT’ projects.”
Darren Cunningham
Vice President
Informatica Cloud.
The Informatica Cloud Winter 2012 upgrade enters the market intending to serve both the tactical (departmental and SMB) and strategic (enterprise CIO, stakeholders) cloud adopters, Cunningham said. “Looking at our new release as a whole, we’re delivering more simplicity, connectivity and enterprise-class features, such as data quality and real-time integration,” he said.
Informatica Cloud Winter 2012 focuses on extending simplicity, reducing complexity and adding business value from cloud integration, Cunningham said. Among the key upgrades are:
Contact Validation Service. This feature brings Informatica data quality technology to the cloud. The wizard-driven service verifies and corrects postal and email addresses from more than 140 countries, and will enrich addresses with geocoding, as needed. It also checks phone numbers against the US “Do Not Call” registry. “From the start, Informatica Cloud was designed as a self-service solution to provide end users data integration as a service,” Cunningham said. “Now, we’re adding in data quality features Informatica has long been known for into our cloud offering.”
Contact validation will be available as an add-on for enterprise-class Informatica Cloud editions. It will also be available as a transaction-based, pay-as-you go service for the Informatica Cloud Express, an SMB version, Cunningham said.
Connectivity Framework. This add-on is an extension of Informatica’s Marketplace, an app store-like collection of connectors, adapters and templates for connecting on-premises and cloud-based applications, databases, flat files, file feeds, and even social networking sites. Already in the Marketplace are connectors for SAP, Salesforce, Oracle EBS, Microsoft Dynamics, Eloqua and Zuora and more.
With the Connectivity Framework, Informatica is making it easier for partners and users to share their own custom connectors with the community.
One analyst endorsed the crowd-sourcing approach. “Informatica is empowering customers and partners to create and share their own custom connectivity in addition to leveraging pre-built connectors … This crowd-sourcing will likely help to open new markets for cloud data integration and Informatica,” said William Fellows, Vice President of Research, with The 451 Group.
Other Informatica Cloud Winter 2012 upgrades include:
- Bulk application program interface (API) support for Salesforce CRM and Force.com
- Built-in live chat included with Enterprise 24/7 customer support
- Data replication change detection enhancements
- Improved activity logs and error messages
- Android support for the Informatica Cloud mobile administration application
Enterprise CIOs, Middleware Professionals
Ratchet Up Interest in Cloud Integration
As cloud takes more control of IT budgets and mindshare, Cunningham said that Informatica is seeing a new class of decision makers who are in on the cloud integration discussions. Among them: application owners, middleware professionals, IT architects and even CIOs.
“We’re definitely seeing the application owners and IT middleware professionals are more and more becoming crucial decision makers in cloud-focused projects,” Cunningham told IDN.
“In fact, in a lot of ways, the technologies and other upgrades we’ve made in Informatica Cloud Winter 2012 are aimed at giving those folks smarter and easier to use [integration] tools, as well as making their end users happy,” he said. “Once we show [middleware] folks how our tools and connectivity framework work, they see that we can hide a lot of complexity without compromising functionality.”
Informatica’s latest enterprise-class, real-time features are getting the thumbs up from middleware professionals. “The new real-time capabilities and expanded connectivity options will be essential for integrating all of our key business systems and processes,” said Jay Moore, media marketing associates at Pac-Van, a provider of innovative space and storage solutions.
“By providing customers with additional solutions for data quality and greatly expanding our connectivity to on-premise and cloud-based applications, organizations can more easily experience the benefits of cloud computing such as simplicity and accelerated time-to-results,” said Ron Papas, general manager for Informatica Cloud, in a statement.
Informatica Cloud Winter 2012, now in pre-release, will be generally available in January 2012.
