Informatica Cloud Pushes the Envelope for Cloud Integration – Twice 
Informatica Cloud is pushing the envelope for integration in the cloud in two new directions. Informatica Cloud Express provides ‘usage-based’ pricing for data integration and uploads to salesforce.com. Also, Informatica Cloud and Dun & Bradstreet have teamed up to offer ‘data-as-a-service,’ to give users one-click access to millions of D&B datasets from within an application.
Informatica Cloud is pushing the envelope for integration in the cloud in two new directions – sure to impact business users, IT architects and SaaS providers.
- Informatica Cloud Express provides ‘usage-based’ pricing data integration and uploads to salesforce.com.
- Support for ‘Data as a Service’ Informatica Cloud has partnered with Dun & Bradstreet to offer ‘data-as-a-service,’ giving users instant access to millions of D&B datasets from within an application.
“Right now, it’s fun and exciting to see where cloud services, especially for integration and data, are going. We’re seeing a lot of interest in our work for ‘usage-based’ pricing and for the ability to support ‘data-as-a-service,’” Darren Cunningham, Informatica Cloud’s vice president of marketing told IDN.
Integration Developer News reviews Informatica Cloud’s two latest cloud-based integration innovations, which debuted this month at DreamForce 2010, salesforce.com’s user meeting.
Inside Informatica Cloud Express
Informatica Cloud Express is designed to allow business users to conduct data integrations with, and uploads to, salesforce.com and Force.com. The solution is based on technology from Informatica Cloud’s data loader, one of the most downloaded apps on the salesforce.com AppExchange, Cunningham said.
“One of the most popular aspects of our tool was that it was just easier to use than salesforce.com’s own tool for many non-technical users,” Cunningham said. “Our wizards handle all the source-target data mapping and uploads so customers get clean data where they need it.”
The launch of Informatica Cloud Express comes directly from feedback from users of the company’s data loader free offering, Cunningham said. “We’ve heard from users, tons of comments about they’d like to see us support this service or offer them more scheduling,” Cunningham said. “We even heard that the product is so useful, they’d even told us they’d be willing to pay for these features.”
So, as Cunningham described it, the opportunity for Informatica and its users was to maintain availability for a free data loading tool, add new features and support to the tool and offer it at an affordable price or payment method.
The result is Informatica Cloud Express is available on a ‘usage-based’ pricing schedule that starts at $99 for moving 300,000 rows in a month. “No one has ever done a usage based pricing for integration,” Cunningham said. “This is a service users can put on their credit card, pay one month and get billed, skip a few months and come in and use it again. Or keep using it every month. It’s up to them. This is not a lock-in subscription model; it is always based on usage.”
While salesforce.com’s free data loading tool can grab data, because it was built as a ‘command line’ tool, it’s just not easy for users to figure out how to connect to a database, Cunningham said. “You have to go into XML files to configure a JDBC driver to get it to work, so that database integration part can be challenging,” he added.
The Informatica Cloud approach builds in powerful user controls, such as the ability to manage consistent entries across multiple address fields (aligning address 1,2,3 fields, for instance), converting characters to integers, or converting data fields originally entered as ‘codes’ to the appropriate real data. The offering also offers pre-built data quality rules, which help ensure data completeness.
Inside the Informatica Cloud, D&B
Partnership for ‘Data-as-a-Service’
D&B360’s ‘data as a service’ approach embeds D&B data directly into applications as part of salesforce.com.
DaaS Platform Features:
- Embeds D&B Data
- Automates matching and refreshing of D&B Data
- Connects D&B data with structured, unstructured data
In total, D&B said D&B360 will offer data and insight on D&B’s complete data sets for companies and individuals, which includes more than 177 million businesses and 53 million contacts worldwide. D&B360 will also tap into outside social media and news sources.
Informatica Cloud technologies provides D&B360 the ability to give customers an automated scheduled way to process bulk batch data and integrate third party products with D&B’s various data stores, and will maintain up-to-date access to the data. Informatica Cloud is an OEM to D&B, providing real-time bulk batch data access, matching and synchronization service. This enables contextual data to be accessed by users for on-going and near real-time access to D&B’s data stores.
Cunningham explains how the DB360/Informatica Cloud connection works for salesforce.com users.
“Once you log into salesforce.com, you can take a new lead you’ve loaded in and match that up with D&B data, a DUNS number for example, to complete the necessary information you want to assign to that person, form or account,” Cunningham said. “Users will also be able to quickly create a list of accounts with more contact information. They can now add all the other contacts for that company from data listed in the D&B database. This is actually a pretty big deal for users.” Users can even access data on credit risks of prospects and customers, he added.
One D&B executive described the picture of what ‘data-as-a-service’ looks like using D&B360. “Business users need easy, always-on access to quality business insight so they can improve productivity, capture greater share of wallet and eliminate data quality issues,” said Jim Delaney, President, D&B Global Sales & Marketing Solutions in a statement. “D&B360 puts a world of trusted business insight in one place, providing users with a wealth of high-quality insight on companies and contacts through the business applications they use every day – in just seconds.”
The Future of ‘Data-as-a-Service’
The Next Wave in Cloud Integration
The D&B360 application and agreement between D&B and Informatica Cloud may push ‘data-as-a-service’ to the front of the next wave of emerging cloud categories, Cunningham said. “This is a pretty big deal for us, and we think it sets a new model for cloud-based integration,” he said.
“I think our OEM arrangement with Dun and Bradstreet creates a whole new OEM model for cloud integration around data-as-a-service. So, as this space matures, it could be very exciting – for us and for SaaS providers and end users.”
He set the stage for his enthusiasm, pointing to skyrocketing interest in integration-focused cloud companies this year. “Integration to and from the cloud has been a very hot space this year, especially looking at OEM-type companies,” Cunningham told IDN. He was referring to big acquisitions of Cast Iron Systems (by IBM) and Boomi (by Dell Computers) in 2010.
One element that makes ‘data-as-a-service’ so intriguing to Cunningham is that the sources of data to ‘surface’ as a service can be quite varied, and the cloud integration architecture is available.
For example, Informatica Cloud’s architecture includes a repository layer, a data integration execution engine and on-premise agent technology (which also include a self-updating connector to support data transforms and connections). It also features smart wizards that can conduct updates, find new connectors and/or streams and support data synchronization.
“It is the core power of our ‘under the covers’ technologies for D&B that could really prove exciting for many of SaaS and data providers, and that could be where the real excitement comes,” Cunningham told IDN. “When the cloud can provide more data and information services to users, without making them need to learn a lot of complex steps, that’s when this phase of cloud will get really exciting.”
