Informatica Data Cataloging A Leader in Recent Evaluation

Last Published: Aug 17, 2023 |

Nathan Turajski

Senior Director, Product Marketing, Data Governance & Privacy

The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Data Catalogs for DataOps Analyst Report Provides Further Validation to Us of Informatica Data Cataloging Leadership

Earlier this year, KuppingerCole Analysts released their Leadership Compass Data Catalogs and Metadata Management. That report highlighted Informatica’s overall leader rating for data catalog solutions. Now, with the release of The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Data Catalogs for DataOps, Q2 2022 report, we’re happy to announce we are a leader in that report as well!

The Forrester report rates Informatica data cataloging as a Leader in its evaluation. With one of the most comprehensive data management platforms available, this rating should come as no surprise. (Unfamiliar with DataOps and need a primer on how data governance and data catalog fit? Read this post, “The 3 Principles of DataOps to Operationalize Your Data Platform.” Or, you can simply jump right into this year’s Forrester Wave report.)

Organizations begin their data governance journey by discovering and inventorying their business-critical data. The insights they gain from data cataloging and data lineage are part of the critical first steps in this process to any DataOps or data governance journey. You can then share these insights and data intelligence with data consumers to generate business value. In order for this to be successful, the data you discover must meet these criteria:

it must be understood
it must be trusted
it must be accessible for trusted data sharing

And this is where DataOps can make or break your organization. The Forrester report recommends that customers look for providers that:

Address the diversity, granularity, and dynamic nature of data and metadata
Generate deep transparency of the nature and path of data flow and delivery
Deliver a UI/UX that reinforces modern DataOps and engineering best practice

So how do you choose the best solution? Do you have the tools to differentiate the market-leading options and, if so, are those tools the right fit for your organizational needs?

What is needed: Market-Leading Technology, Ability to Scale and a Trusted Partner for Long-Term Success

Your organization demands the best DataOps solution. But is it only about the leading enterprise data catalog technology, or is there more to the story?

What about your long-term data strategy vision? Do your partners have the advisory skills to accelerate time to value? Do you operate a global organization where you define scale not only by enterprise size, but by geographic coverage, or by other measures?

The good news is you can have your cake — and eat it too! The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Data Catalogs for DataOps report provides a guide to help you find the right solution — and one size may not fit all. Your organization wants to work with a vendor that can help you identify roadblocks to success. And when you work with someone that has, “been there, done that,” they can help you overcome the challenges of scaling out your DataOps vision as a trusted partner. So, what can we learn from the report?

Informatica Data Catalog Delivers Data Cataloging for DataOps from a Trusted Partner

Here are a few of the highlights from The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Data Catalog for DataOps report. Let’s dig deeper into why Forrester positions Informatica as a Leader.

“Informatica delivers holistically on DataOps capabilities. Strong, steady, and pragmatic is a winning strategy for Informatica.”
There is a lot to unpack with this statement. In short, we believe it refers to how we offer one of the broadest and most flexible data management platforms to grow DataOps capabilities. The Informatica Intelligent Data Management Cloud (IDMC) lets you operationalize your data strategy. This flexibility means you can grow and scale your capabilities where and when you need them. Want to enable data discovery and data lineage for your data architects and data engineers? Start with an AI-powered data catalog. Ready to package your data assets to automate delivery and fulfillment? We’ve got the tools to help you create the shopping experience you want. Informatica can help you grow when ready with the power of CLAIRE® AI and ML to accelerate your journey.
“…a large, deep, and strategic partner ecosystem among technology and service providers.”
The Forrester report also states: “One reference customer called this out as a differentiating factor for working with Informatica.” What sounds good on paper often misses in reality. What makes the difference here? A powerful network of reliable technology and integration partners you can depend on to help enable your DataOps vision. Informatica ensure that you can choose from the widest range of options. You have choices when it comes to data source connectivity to your data lakes and warehouses with data catalog Advanced Scanners. You can work with world-class advisory services from Informatica. You can tap into our network of ecosystem partners to accelerate your success. In other words, Informatica and our partners can help each step of the way.
And speaking of technology in practice…
World-class partners and integration services would not matter if your capabilities lagged. Informatica has you covered here with a reliable approach to technology delivery. As Forrester mentions in their report, “New kids on the block attempt to disrupt Informatica’s footprint, but Informatica’s product innovation and planned enhances stay timed to client needs over shiny objects.” They also point out how our “Product vision and market approach are tightly coupled, pragmatic, and connected to solve the big picture data and data governance challenges for both CIO and CDO objectives. Informatica EDC is ready for modern deployment with the investments into cloud native APIs and Kubernetes.”

The Informatica Difference

We realize that one size does not fit all and that not every vendor will meet your needs. You know what you need for your data stakeholders, use cases, data management strategy or ecosystem partners. But we do invite you to start a conversation and see why we believe Informatica is not just a market leader, but your long-term partner for success.

A few considerations to help guide your decision-making when reviewing DataOps solutions:

The platform grows with you as your maturity evolves with best-in-class capabilities at your fingertips
While the Forrester Wave™ focused on data catalogs, a complete DataOps solution depends on best-in-class comprehensive capabilities. Forrester makes the following point about Informatica Data Quality, Data Preparation and Master Data Management: “Data quality and analytics governance are above par and complete with the integration of their data quality and MDM tools, and native data preparation.” And when you combine data governance and catalog in a single solution, you have a winning combination. Forrester noted, “Axon, its data governance solution, will further extend DataOps for an end-to-end data engineer and data steward workbench.”
Customer success is our passion, and our customers lead their industries
Informatica is proud to support the world’s leading organizations on their DataOps missions and their success is our success. As Forrester notes, “Reference customers are loyal and give Informatica the highest overall satisfaction marks for evaluated capabilities. Specifically, customers highlight the user experience, data product support, and developer support. Customers say metadata management, discovery and profiling, and monitoring and alerts are as expected.” What better recognition than from our valued customers — thank you!
Is there a cloud-native solution option that supports your digital transformation?
You want a solution that’s not simply hosted in the cloud, but a SaaS cloud-native approach that can scale to your needs. You want seamless expansion and upgrades, with built-in platform security and reliability.
Can your vendor demonstrate a track record of leadership?
Smaller, untested vendors may disrupt the market through innovation, but could fail in the long run. You want trusted vendors that are both innovative and sustainable. Look for a vendor with broad and deep metadata connectivity, and AI- and ML-powered automation that accelerates data intelligence from a world-class support team.
Are capabilities built on a modern data management platform?
We do offer the industry’s first and only Intelligent Data Management Cloud. Here, you need a solution that unifies cloud-native metadata-driven intelligence for all your data management functions. This allows you to address everything from data catalog and data quality to data mastering and beyond.
Do you have flexible pricing based on consumption, rather than unused bits?
Start small and scale out — DataOps includes several moving parts beyond the data catalog, so you need a solution that grows as your journey does. And once your most critical teams are working with trusted data, you’ll find it’s easier to share and democratize trusted data.
Will your peers attest to the results?
Latest tech innovations or not, anything that can’t show results is a recipe for shelfware. Global customers across virtually all critical industries trust us to help them succeed. We help our customers turn raw data into the data intelligence that fuels value creation opportunities. Saving time and money while shrinking time to value requires a proven partner — look no further than Informatica!

For more information, the Forrester report is now available for download to help you further qualify the best DataOps approach for you. Read The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Data Catalogs for DataOps, Q2 2022 to:

See Forrester’s assessment of the top 14 vendors in the enterprise data catalog market
Learn 3 key things to consider when evaluating enterprise data catalogs
See why Informatica is named a Leader in enterprise data catalogs

Learn More

But you don’t need to take our word for it. Hear how Point 72 is accelerating data analytics as it “cuts data discovery time by 75% with Informatica and Databricks.”

See how today’s solutions stack up and enable data to unleash greater value — download these valuable reports today.

Join Our “Back to Basics Webinar Series: Cloud Data Lineage” Live and On-Demand to Learn Data Catalog Concepts, and Hear from Experts and Customers.

First Published: Aug 04, 2022