Key Features of Informatica Data Explorer

Data Profiling

Valuable business data is often scattered throughout the enterprise, trapped in disparate proprietary and legacy systems. Before this data can be used as a strategic business asset in a specific application or business system-or in a data integration initiative such as data migration or a data warehouse project-the data in the source systems must be thoroughly understood.

One of the key features of Informatica Data Explorer is its sophisticated data profiling capabilities. Informatica Data Explorer uses a combination of automated discovery and interactive analysis processes to define the content, structure, and quality of highly complex data structures. The software alerts data analysts and data stewards to hidden inconsistencies and incompatibilities between data sources and target applications.

Benefits

• Automates data investigation and discovery processes, making the data profiling process faster and easier
• Allows for resolution of data quality issues before the data is cleansed and/or used in IT or broader data integration initiatives, minimizing risk
• Gives full responsibility for data profiling to those people in the organization (data analysts and data stewards) who know and understand the data best
• Gives business users confidence that the data upon which they rely to make strategic business decisions is complete, consistent, accurate, and de-duplicated; conforms to standard formats; and demonstrates integrity

Capabilities

The robust and highly scalable data profiling capabilities of Informatica Data Explorer help users find out a lot about their enterprise data. The software profiles data in three dimensions:

1. Column Profiling. Informatica Data Explorer analyzes all the values within each column or attribute, and discovers the true metadata and content quality problems.
    
2. Single-table Structural Profiling. Informatica Data Explorer examines each attribute/column in relation to every other attribute/column within a table, looking for dependency relationships and uncovering functional dependencies, primary keys, data structure quality problems.
    
3. Cross-table Structural Profiling. Informatica Data Explorer compares data between tables, determining which attributes contain overlapping or identical sets of values. The software discovers duplicate data across systems; foreign keys, synonyms, and homonyms; and values corrupting data integrity.

Informatica Data Explorer creates an accurate profile of data, which is stored in an open, standards-based repository so that it can easily be accessed and reused. Data can be profiled on an ongoing basis, and changes to source data can be analyzed over time to improve data quality.

Informatica Data Explorer also helps users communicate what they've discovered about the data. The software enables data analysts and data stewards to generate "tags" against any data element stored in the repository. These tags might include information about project management, data explanations, or transformation logic. This feature lets users easily identify data quality issues, document them, flag them for resolution, and communicate them to others in the organization easily via email.

Product Literature

Informatica Data Explorer datasheet