1. Informatica Drives MDM with
Database Virtualization
CUSTOMER CASE STUDY
©
2011
Delphix
Corp.
All
rights
reserved.
Fast Growing Company
Driven
by
the
increasing
importance
of
applications
for
businesses
worldwide,
Informatica,
the
leading
independent
provider
of
data
integration
software,
continues
to
grow
rapidly.
Over
the
last
several
years,
as
it
expanded
in
size
and
geographies,
Informatica
developed
applications
and
systems
for
different
functional
groups,
from
sales
and
marketing
to
HR
and
customer
support.
While
these
applications
drove
efficiency
and
intelligence
into
the
operations
of
each
functional
group,
they
resulted
in
information
silos,
making
it
difficult
to
leverage
timely
data
across
the
entire
company.
Launching the Master Data Management Initiative
In
order
to
harness
data
across
all
functions,
Tony
Young,
Informatica
Senior
Vice
President
and
Chief
Information
Officer,
launched
a
master
data
management
(MDM)
initiative.
Young
wanted
to
correlate
and
synchronize
all
customer
information
so
the
company
could
improve
customer
service
and
equip
the
sales
team
with
timely
information
to
create
more
value
out
of
customer
interactions.
Master
data
includes
information
key
to
business
operations—data
about
customers,
products,
employees,
materials,
suppliers,
etc.
Master
data
supports
transactional
processes
and
operations
but
also
encompasses
analytics
and
reporting.
The
first
step
to
MDM
is
data
governance—getting
the
right
people
from
all
disciplines
to
discuss
customer
interactions
and
data,
using
the
same
terminology
when
referring
to
customer
activities.
The
Informatica
team
agreed
upon
a
shared
language
and
process
in
order
to
forge
a
single,
360-­‐degree
view
of
a
customer
across
the
multiple
systems
in
the
enterprise.
With
governance
agreed
upon,
they
began
creating
“golden
keys.”
All
data
sourced
into
the
MDM
solution
had
to
be
collected,
cleansed,
de-­‐duplicated
and
augmented
with
third
party
reference
data
(e.g.
D&B).
Afterward
the
updated
data
needed
to
be
loaded
back
into
source
systems
to
ensure
ongoing
consistency.
Informatica’s
MDM
program
impacts
six
applications,
acting
as
data
sources,
targets,
or
both.
These
active
applications
needed
to
be
maintained
for
daily
operations
while
servicing
the
added
demands
of
the
MDM
program.
To
compound
the
challenge,
Informatica
runs
a
lean,
highly
leveraged
IT
team,
with
a
small
number
of
DBAs,
developers,
and
analysts.
In
order
to
reduce
the
impact
on
production
applications,
they
needed
to
create
non-­‐production
copies
of
servers,
databases,
software
licenses,
and
storage
to
facilitate
the
project—a
daunting
amount
of
complex
work.
Three Major Challenges
Peter
Vanderhaak,
Informatica
Senior
Director
of
Enterprise
Data
Management,
began
investigating
options
to
handle
the
MDM
infrastructure
challenges.
First,
Vanderhaak
had
to
find
a
way
to
get
access
to
the
production
databases,
which
were
owned
and
managed
by
the
different
lines
of
business.
Second,
as
they
finalized
the
MDM
requirements,
Vanderhaak
discovered
that
they
needed
at
least
six
duplicate
development
environments
and
another
six
testing
environments
to
(NASDAQ:
INFA)
§ Informatica
Corporation
§ 100
Cardinal
Way
Redwood
City,
CA
94063
United
States
§ Phone:
650.385.5000
§ Website:
http://www.informatica.com
§ Industry:
Business
Software
and
Services
KEY
RESULTS
§ Faster
time
to
market:
saved
6
months
in
MDM
project
rollout
§ Self
service
access
to
multiple
database
sources
for
provisioning
and
refresh
§ Consolidate
6
development
and
6
testing
environments
per
production
database
§ Reduced
days
to
weeks
of
provisioning
and
refresh
work
to
minutes

2.
P.
2
©
2011
Delphix
Corp.
All
rights
reserved.
ensure
a
consistent
view
of
the
data—a
mountain
of
redundant
infrastructure.
Third,
as
development
progressed,
they
needed
to
refresh
data
from
production
sources
several
times
on
an
ad
hoc
basis,
without
disrupting
the
applications
critical
to
the
lines
of
business
and
without
overburdening
the
teams
managing
production
operations.
As
a
result,
Vanderhaak
turned
to
Delphix
to
solve
his
database
access,
inflation,
and
refresh
challenge.
Delphix
applies
the
simplifying
concept
of
virtualization
to
database
infrastructure,
enabling
self-­‐service
provisioning,
refresh,
and
rollback
of
virtual
databases
(VDBs)
that
operate
in
one
tenth
the
space,
with
improved
agility
and
manageability.
Solving the Database Challenge
Delphix
software
creates
a
self-­‐synchronizing
cloud
where
Vanderhaak
and
his
team
can
quickly
provision
or
refresh
VDBs
for
development
and
testing,
dramatically
simplifying
and
accelerating
the
MDM
initiative.
Delphix
software
installs
on
standard
x86
servers,
in
a
virtual
machine,
or
on
private/public
cloud
infrastructure.
As
an
Oracle
gold-­‐certified
ISV
partner,
Delphix
connects
with
Oracle
databases
through
standard
APIs,
loads
a
first
copy
into
Delphix,
and
then
automatically
maintains
synchronization
by
requesting
changed
data—with
little
to
no
ongoing
impact
on
production
systems.
By
policy,
Delphix
records
data
changes
using
its
patent-­‐pending
TimeFlow
technology
for
a
set
retention
period
(e.g.
two
weeks).
From
any
point
along
the
TimeFlow,
DBAs
can
instantly
provision
or
refresh
VDBs,
which
look
and
behave
like
full
copies
of
a
database
but
only
require
a
fraction
of
the
storage
space.
Since
most
of
the
twelve
database
environments
created
for
the
MDM
initiative
are
copies,
they
contain
over
95%
redundant
data,
which
Delphix
eliminates
by
mapping
shared
data
blocks
across
VDBs.
Self Service for MDM
With
Delphix
in
place,
Vanderhaak
and
his
team
have
been
able
to
provision
and
refresh
VDBs
in
a
self-­‐service
fashion—without
impacting
the
lines
of
business
and
without
burdening
teams
managing
production
operations.
By
quickly
creating
these
virtual
data
environments,
Vanderhaak
enabled
both
onshore
and
offshore
teams
to
work
quickly
on
the
data,
eliminating
several
days
to
weeks
for
each
database
provisioning
and
refresh
job.
In
addition,
with
its
log
synchronization
feature,
Delphix
can
provision
multiple
VDBs
all
at
the
same
point
in
time,
synchronizing
data
across
multiple
sources
down
to
the
second—a
key
requirement
for
certain
sets
of
data
and
integration
environments.
Informatica
has
been
live
with
its
MDM
initiative
for
nearly
a
year.
In
that
time,
Vanderhaak
estimates
Delphix
has
saved
approximately
six
months
of
project
time
by
enabling
self-­‐
service
access
as
needed,
reducing
refresh
times,
and
eliminating
the
need
to
provision
storage
for
each
new
environment.
Informatica’s
MDM
initiative
enables
the
business
to
get
a
360-­‐degree
view
of
customer
and
prospect
interactions—from
products
purchased,
to
support
tickets
submitted,
to
website
clicks
and
downloads.
The
resulting
analysis
has
reduced
lead
routing
error
rates
from
25%
to
less
than
5%,
resulting
in
a
2.5%
increase
in
revenue.
This
year
they
plan
to
include
social
media,
which
will
allow
Informatica
to
analyze
tweets
and
individual
sentiments,
and
correlate
the
information
with
current
sales
campaigns.
DELPHIX
SERVER
FEATURES
§ Automatically
sync
with
production
databases
through
standard
database
APIs
§ Provision
or
refresh
populated
virtual
databases
(VDBs)
in
minutes
§ Enable
self
service
access
for
developers
and
analysts
for
key
projects
§ Synchronize
data
from
multiple
sources
with
integrated
log
synchronization
§ Reduce
storage
requirements
by
10x
§ Installs
in
minutes
on
x86
servers,
in
a
VM,
or
on
private/public
cloud
infrastructure
“Delphix
is
a
change
in
mentality.”
—Peter
Vanderhaak,
Senior
Director
of
Enterprise
Data
Management

3.
P.
3
©
2011
Delphix
Corp.
All
rights
reserved.
Delphix
Server:
Sync
Multiple
Source
Databases
Down
to
the
Second
Forecast: More Virtual Databases
Next
up,
Informatica
will
be
rolling
out
Delphix
for
every
Oracle
database
in
their
organization
used
for
application
development
and
QA
testing.
With
TimeFlow,
Informatica
uses
Delphix
to
quickly
capture
a
specific
dataset.
Vanderhaak’s
team
then
creates
a
second
virtual
environment
where
they
implement
code
changes,
run
processing,
and
then
compare
results
with
Informatica’s
Data
Validation
Option
(DVO).
This
helps
them
understand
the
actual
impact
of
the
code
changes,
which
enables
more
efficient
and
less
disruptive
development.
According
to
Vanderhaak,
“Delphix
is
a
change
in
mentality.”
“Instead
of
relying
on
static
physical
copies,
which
quickly
become
stale,”
Vanderhaak
explains,
“Delphix
creates
a
dynamic
environment
where
we
can
build
up
databases
when
we
need
them
and
tear
them
down
when
complete.”
As
a
leading
technology
company,
Informatica
has
been
quick
to
adopt
server
virtualization
and
cloud
solutions.
With
Delphix,
they
have
finally
been
able
to
extend
the
benefits
of
virtualization
to
their
database
infrastructure.
By
pairing
Delphix
with
Informatica’s
powerful
data
integration
software,
Young
and
Vanderhaak
not
only
reduced
costs
and
complexity
but
also
accelerated
their
internal
MDM
initiative,
which
drives
both
top-­‐line
and
bottom-­‐line
benefits
to
the
business.
For
more
information,
contact
Delphix
at
sales@delphix.com.
MDM
PRODUCT
LIST
§ D&B
data
§ Informatica
PowerCenter
§ Informatica
Data
Quality
§ Informatica
Identity
Resolution
§ Informatica
DVO
§ Informatica
PowerExchange
§ Oracle
database
§ HP
hardware
§ Delphix
Server
software
“Instead
of
relying
on
static
physical
copies,
which
quickly
become
stale,
Delphix
creates
a
dynamic
environment
where
we
can
build
up
databases
when
we
need
them
and
tear
them
down
when
complete.”
—Peter
Vanderhaak,
Senior
Director
of
Enterprise
Data
Management