Informatica Complex Data Exchange

Overview

Key Features

Much of the critical data in the enterprise today is in the form of complex data, historically difficult to access and integrate with other enterprise data. Lack of easy, automated access to complex data can prevent the optimization of business processes and hinder decision making. Complex data includes unstructured data (e.g. binary files, spreadsheets, documents, and print streams), semi-structured data (e.g. legacy data formats such as COBOL, standards such as HIPAA, EDI, HL7, SWIFT), and complex structured data (e.g. ACORD, MISMO, or data in XML documents with deeply hierarchical and recursive structures).

Enterprises need to exchange complex data in a variety of integration scenarios that span batch and real time processing as well as business intelligence. The need for complex data exchange is prevalent in SOAs, cross-enterprise data exchange, straight-through processing, and end-to-end business process integration.

Informatica Complex Data Exchange provides a comprehensive, enterprise-class solution to complex data exchange challenges. The product is architected for high-performance, real-time integration applications such as industry exchange hubs in banking, insurance, healthcare, and manufacturing, legacy modernization, and distributed SOA data services.

Benefits

For enterprises with complex data exchange requirements that span real-time, operational, and analytic information, Informatica provides the industry's leading unified solution for complex data management and integration.

Our technology allows your organization to respond more rapidly to changing business conditions or regulatory requirements within a modern, unified, adaptable, and cost-effective information service that plugs directly into existing software infrastructure, preserving and extending IT investments. Using Informatica Complex Data Exchange, organizations can:

Define complex data transformations without writing code
Immediately deploy and reuse transformations across enterprise software infrastructure, preserving investment and promoting loosely-coupled, service-oriented integration
Reduce the development time and cost of integration projects, delivering order-of-magnitude IT productivity gains through codeless development and reuse of complex data services
Bridge batch and real-time data integration with a single, unified toolset and pluggable infrastructure
Rapidly deploy platform-independent data services to virtually any middleware or application server environment

Complex Data Exchange provides:

Immediate reuse of transformations that can be deployed across enterprise software infrastructure
Ability to generate multiple, "platform native" executables from a single transformation definition
Flexibility, choice, and ease-of-integration that affords the user unmatched power in the control of data
Ability to avoid the maintenance problems associated with redundant code

Capabilities

Informatica Complex Data Exchange is comprised of three main components

Complex Data Exchange Studio, an intuitive, wizard-driven, drag-and-drop Eclipse-based GUI adaptive modeling environment that runs in a Microsoft Windows environment. The Studio is designed for developers and features a codeless, declarative paradigm for defining sophisticated transformations between multiple complex data formats to XML and then transformation back to multiple complex formats for distribution. Complex Data Exchange Studio features adaptive modeling capabilities that are designed to enhance developer productivity when dealing with complex data formats as sources or targets for sophisticated rules-driven transformation:
- Example-driven transformation-Complex Data Exchange Studio's example-driven transformation allows users to define, test, and debug a transformation using a visual mark-and-map process directly on a sample of the data source.
- Specification-driven transformation-Complex Data Exchange Studio takes a message specification as input and automatically generates a flexible transformation framework that includes intermediate XML XSDs, message parsers (native format-to-XML), and serializers (XML-to-native format).
Complex Data Exchange Engine, a high-performance, lightweight software component that is embeddable and features a simple buffer- or file-passing API. Complex Data Exchange Engine can be used standalone as a callable software component from any C/C++, Java, or .NET application and is also available in the form of pre-integrated agents for Informatica PowerCenter, IBM WebSphere integration products, Oracle Fusion Middleware, Microsoft BizTalk, SAP NetWeaver, webMethods, TIBCO BusinessWorks, Sonic ESB, and open source middleware on virtually all major distributed hardware/OS platforms.
Complex Data Exchange Data Format Libraries, pre-built transformations for all flavors of financial and healthcare messaging standards, EDI standards, XML -based messaging standards, Microsoft Office documents, Adobe PDF, and more.

Complex Data Exchange Product Architecture

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Informatica Complex Data Exchange gives organizations the power to integrate and exchange all forms of complex data with other data assets to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of operational business processes as well as the precision of business intelligence.

�Informatica enables us to achieve automated transformations across data of all types, including both structured data and highly complex SWIFT messages, within a single environment. Complex Data Exchange extends the utility of our existing PowerCenter implementation, while speeding the introduction of new applicationsat a much lower cost than before.�

- Avram Kornberg, CIO, Natixis USA

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