Introduction

Data Integration comprises the processes by which data from different parts of the information system are moved, combined, and consolidated. These processes usually consist of:
Extracting data from different sources (databases, files, applications, Web Services, email, etc.) Applying changes (joins, lookups, comparisons, calculations, etc.) Sending the transformed data to the target systems (Data Warehouse, BI application, etc.)
When choosing the integration solution that best meets their needs, companies must ask themselves key questions: What is the scope of the project? Is this a one-off or recurring? What data sources should be connected?
Software vendors will assure you that their product is the one you need but, in reality, the proposed solutions may or may not be appropriate. To help you evaluate various solutions and technologies available on the market, and to compare the leading open source data integration technology with other alternatives, this White Paper presents the top 10 reasons why customers are choosing Talend—with proof points provided as extracts from customer case studies.

#10 Market-Ready Products, Not Evaluation Versions

Talend Open Studio is a complete product comprising many features and a wide range of connectors. Talend’s flagship product, it is the most open, innovative and powerful data integration solution available today. Talend Open Studio isn‟t a lightweight product or „trialware.‟ It contains all the features required for building powerful data integration processes, and is freely downloadable and usable under the GPL v2 license. Talend Integration Suite is an enhanced version of Talend Open Studio, providing additional, enterprise-level functionality (collaboration, automated deployment, load balancing, monitoring) for enterprise-grade projects. The solution includes high-level technical support to respond to corporate issues and legal guarantees of intellectual property protection (IP indemnification).
If you‟re hesitating between Talend Open Studio and Talend Integration Suite, the Features Comparison Matrix provides an excellent overview of the features of the different products.

#09 No Barrier to Adoption

Implementing Talend Open Studio is quick and easy—just download the latest version from Talend‟s website and install it. If you have any problems (or just want more information), the community forums should be able to help you out. The product is free, which means that you don‟t need to justify it to management or start a formal procurement process before solving your integration issues. You won‟t spend any time on administration tasks and won‟t need any vendor face time. You can use the product in an unlimited mode and, of course, keep it as long as you like. You‟ll also get free product upgrades by downloading new versions as they become available. No need to negotiate with the vendor. Do you need a data integration solution now? Download it and use it immediately!

#08 Fast Learning Curve

Talend tools are user-friendly and very easy to handle. The graphical user interface is intuitive and doesn‟t require formal training. Talend‟s Job Designer provides both a graphical and a functional view of the actual integration processes using a graphical palette of components and connectors—the Component Library. Integration processes are built by simply dragging and dropping components and connectors onto the workspace, drawing connections and relationships between them, and setting their properties (most properties are inherited from the metadata). Talend‟s Business Modeler leverages a top-down approach, allowing line-of-business stakeholders to get involved in the design of the integration processes and to monitor development progress.

#07 Stable & Predictable Pricing Model

Proprietary vendors charge a “data tax” which increases the cost of processing additional data—adding servers, data sources/targets, or even transitioning to multi-core CPUs requires the purchase of additional licenses. Thus, infrastructure costs are not predictable and companies can‟t determine when they will reach their limits. With Talend, the cost of the solution is based on the number of developers of data integration processes. You can access new data as needed. For example, when setting up a new application or acquiring a new business—operations sometimes hard to predict in advance—you don‟t need to buy additional licenses. Moreover, if a company is moving from development mode to maintenance mode, it doesn‟t have to keep all its licenses.

#06 The Strength of a Community

When one refers to open source, the community is also there. Open source users benefit from the strength of this community, both in terms of support and product development.
Talend‟s online community offers many resources that facilitate implementing and maintaining Talend solutions—forums, wiki, tutorials, blogs, BugTracker, etc. Moreover, the vendor encourages contributions from its users, who develop connectors or features or modify the source code, giving back their contributions to the larger community.

Talend Babili translates the user interface. Four months after launching Babili—Talend‟s first community translation application—Talend unveiled nine language packs which localize the UI of its products. Talend‟s tools are the only data integration solutions on the market today that provide localization options for users and developers, extending Talend‟s reach around the world.

#05 Enterprise-Grade Support

Contrary to popular belief, commercial open source vendors provide real support services, similar in type and quality to those offered by proprietary vendors. This is the case with Talend, whose services are designed to facilitate teamwork and increase productivity. These services are delivered by Talend experts, or by Talend-certified partners, and offer the same services as the largest proprietary vendors—service level agreements (SLA), guaranteed response times, etc.
Talend knows its products best. Users signing a contract for technical support from Talend are also subscribing to „peace of mind.‟ Our Technical experts are not only experts in data integration, but are connected directly with Talend‟s R & D. Read more about Talend‟s Professional Support Services.

#04 The Broadest Connectivity

With more than 400 connectors, Talend’s solutions provide virtually unlimited connectivity to enterprise systems—databases, software packages, mainframes, files, Web Services, etc. No other solution available on the market today offers so many connectors. This is due to Talend‟s large community of users who make their discoveries available to the public. By the same token, Talend‟s R&D department shares its IT developments with the community—a win-win situation.

#03 Universality, Versatility for all Projects

Talend‟s data integration solutions are not limited to standard ETL (Extract-Transform-Load) functionality for Business Intelligence, but can also be used for operational data integration projects; typically these are still done manually, but can benefit from a data integration environment All organizations—whatever their size—are faced with managing a data volumes explosion. It is estimated that the amount of data doubles every year, fueled by the digitalization of production lines and distribution systems (RFID), automated ERP and CRM processes, office and communications software, Business Intelligence performance analysis tools, new communication technologies (email, VoIP), etc. Data integration projects are quite varied. With Talend solutions, you can reuse existing developments in new projects, gaining time-to-market and productivity.

#02 Functionality, Performance, Reliability

Far from the stereotypes concerning the lack of professionalism surrounding open source, Talend‟s solutions are real business tools, offering a level of functionality equal to that of proprietary vendors. And being open source doesn‟t mean that a solution was developed by volunteers in their spare time. Talend has its own R&D teams and, as discussed above, its solutions are enriched by contributions from the community. Although Talend controls the product roadmap, the company continually listens to the opinion and needs of its community and its customers to help effect change. Talend is committed to providing powerful, reliable solutions that attract many users.

#01 Optimized Time and Cost

Talend’s solutions are 50% to 80% cheaper than equivalent proprietary solutions offered on the market. They are also less expensive to deploy, maintain, and support. In addition, they facilitate faster development and production as compared to proprietary tools and hand-coding. For example, the Business Modeler streamlines communication between business users and the development teams, reducing the time a company typically takes to identify needs and launch new product development, while giving users relevant business information. Moreover, monitoring of the data integration processes can be easily integrated into a global supervision console, which gives users a faster and more responsive escalation procedure, reducing costly downtime, and guaranteeing current data.

Conclusion

Open source solutions are continually evolving to meet market requirements. As companies merge, acquire new applications and build their IT platforms by incorporating disparate applications with legacy systems, information systems are becoming more and more heterogeneous. As a result, data integration tools are now a must-have for enterprise IT departments to properly manage the flows of data across the information system. In this context, open source data integration solutions offer a very compelling argument. Open source tools can automate and maintain tasks formerly requiring manual scripts, and the existing skills of the IT implementation team easily transfer to an open source offering. Nor do IT departments have to justify up-front fees, a key consideration today. The TCO is significantly better than proprietary solutions and users confirm the ease-of-use and performance of these products. The data integration market is very large—more than $13 billion annually and growing. More and more, open source vendors are taking this business from the high-priced proprietary incumbents. This is partly because of the perceived value-add that open source brings to the table—high value instead of high price; no vendor lock-in, faster time-to-market and better responsiveness to customers.

Another defining factor is how a company responds to three key players: its community, its partners, and its customers. Many open source companies tend to be strong in one or two of these areas, but Talend is unique in excelling in all three. Today, Talend has a strongly involved and committed community with give-and-take in both directions; a large number of paying customers world-wide; and an extensive partner network.

Welcome to the future.

(C) Talend GmbH, 2009