Learn More About Big Data Integration Platforms
Who Uses Big Data Integration Platforms?
Data analysts and data scientists: These employees are generally the main users of big data integration tools. They use the software to gather a deeper understanding of business-critical data. These teams may be tasked with data preparation, cleansing, and data processing for further analysis.
Marketing teams: Marketing teams often run different types of campaigns, including email marketing, digital advertising, or even traditional advertising campaigns. The data that is error free and insightful helps the marketing team to execute successful campaigns and strategies. Big data integration helps the marketing teams promote the company or its product to the target audience.
Finance teams: Finance teams leverage data integration platforms to gain insight and understanding into the factors that impact an organization's business. Finance teams require real-time data for obtaining actionable insights which is possible using advanced data integration software. By integrating financial data with other operations data, accounting and finance teams pull actionable insights that might not have been uncovered through the use of traditional tools.
Software Related to Big Data Integration Platforms
Related solutions that can be used together with data integration include:
Metadata-driven data integration software: Big data integration software can handle a variety of data. However, when used with powerful metadata, it can streamline the creation and management of BI reporting. Metadata repository provides a view and analyses the movement of data around the organization.
Data management platforms: This category of software is used to gather, analyze, and store big data. Data management platforms help organizations leverage big data from various sources in real time leading to effective customer engagement.
Data replication software: Data replication can be one-time or an ongoing process. This software aims at keeping all the members of the organization on the same page. Data replication involves copying data from one server to a database on another server.
Big data analytics software: Data Analytics platforms are a great aid to any organization with the need for timely data visualization of high-level analytics. Many industries target their customers using data analytics which helps the companies provide a customized experience and meet customer expectations.
Application integration software: Application integration, like data integration, works in batches; this leaves gaps in taking quick actions. Organizations can benefit from moving data in real time with application integration to easy access and quicker actions.
How to Buy Big Data Integration Platforms?
Requirements Gathering (RFI/RFP) for Big Data Integration Platforms
If a company is just starting out and looking to purchase the first big data integration platform, or maybe an organization needs to update a legacy system--wherever a business is in its buying process, g2.com can help select the best big data integration software for the business.
The particular business pain points might be related to all of the manual work that must be completed. If the company has amassed a lot of data, the need is to look for a solution that can grow with the organization. Users should think about the pain points and jot them down; these should be used to help create a checklist of criteria. Additionally, the buyer must determine the number of employees who will need to use the big data integration tool, as this drives the number of licenses they are likely to buy.
Taking a holistic overview of the business and identifying pain points can help the team springboard into creating a checklist of criteria. The checklist serves as a detailed guide that includes both necessary and nice-to-have features including budget features, number of users, integrations, security requirements, cloud or on-premises solutions, and more.
Depending on the scope of the deployment, it might be helpful to produce an RFI, a one-page list with a few bullet points describing what is needed from a big data integration platform.
Compare Big Data Integration Platforms Products
Create a long list
From meeting the business functionality needs to implementation, vendor evaluations are an essential part of the software buying process. For ease of comparison after all demos are complete, it helps to prepare a consistent list of questions regarding specific needs and concerns to ask each vendor.
Create a short list
From the long list of vendors, it is helpful to narrow down the list of vendors and come up with a shorter list of contenders, preferably no more than three to five. With this list in hand, businesses can produce a matrix to compare the features and pricing of the various big data integration solutions.
Conduct demos
To ensure the comparison is thorough, the user should demo each solution on the shortlist with the same use case and datasets. This will allow the business to evaluate like for like and see how each vendor stacks up against the competition.
Selection of Big Data Integration Platforms
Choose a selection team
Before getting started, it's crucial to create a team that will work together throughout the entire process, from identifying pain points to implementation. The software selection team should consist of members of the organization who have the right interest, skills, and time to participate in this process. A team of three to five people with roles such as the main decision maker, project manager, process owner, system owner, or staffing subject matter expert, as well as a technical lead, IT administrator would suffice. In smaller companies, the vendor selection team may be smaller, with fewer participants multitasking and taking on more responsibilities.
Negotiation
As data integration platforms are all about the data, the user must make sure that the selection process is data driven as well. The selection team should compare important data like pricing metrics of a particular vendor, the stage that buyer organization is in, and also terms and conditions of the organization.
Final decision
It is imperative to open up a conversation regarding pricing and licensing. For example, the vendor may be willing to give a discount for multi-year contracts or for recommending the product to others.
