Actian DataConnect

What do you like best?

The flexibility that the solution allows when mapping, moving, and transforming data. Using the data integrator, it was very easy to program for all sorts of incoming data and handle all types of situations based on events, data quality, variables, etc.

What do you dislike?

I wish they would get rid of that proprietary scripting language they use (RIFL) and instead go with c# or python or any other more standardized language. RIFL was hard to lookup when we had questions or problems because it's not used anywhere else.

Recommendations to others considering the product:

I have an interesting perspective on Data Integrator because I worked with it for almost 4 years before switching companies. To be honest, when I started working with Data Integrator I didn't like it at all. I found it tough to program in, specifically the RIFL scripting because there is very little community support when compared to the likes of c# or javascript. After the initial learning curve, it got much better for me but I still wasn't 100% sold on the product. It wasn't until I got to my new company where we DON'T have Data Integrator that I fully understood the value Pervasive brings to the industry. At this company, we use SSIS to perform the same kind of data movements that I did previously using Data Integrator. While I do see some benefits of using SSIS, I am currently pushing management to move over to Pervasive. It's a million times more flexible and user friendly.

What problems are you solving with the product? What benefits have you realized?

My primary role when working with Pervasive's Data Integrator was as a data migration analyst. We would migrate massive databases between software suites, vendors, and software versions. Without this software, the migrations would have been a million times harder and far less consistent. Using Data Integrator, we could push out hundreds of migrated data sets each month with relative ease and we were also able to scale the product out to help with the largest of our migrations.