DataFlux

The SAS solution in the data discovery and profiling space is part of the SAS DataFlux Data Management Platform. DataFlux started life as a data quality vendor but, after it was acquired by SAS, has expanded its capabilities to include data integration (including both ETL and data virtualisation/federation), master data management and complex event processing along with a business glossary (see other SAS product pages). The company has been active in the data governance space for some years. Until recently it has acted as an independent subsidiary of SAS but that has now changed, with the brand now having been taken directly within the SAS umbrella. This will be good for SAS customers but will likely mean that the company loses traction as an independent vendor looking for sales in non-SAS accounts. Given the quality of the product this is unfortunate.

The DataFlux Data Management Platform is arguably the leading product in the market in technical terms and is certainly a leading product. It is especially strong in its technical competency for both profiling and profiling combined with discovery. In particular, DataFlux has very strong support for users, both at a business and technical level.

Historically, DataFlux has had a broad focus across industry sectors and across organisation sizes. SAS, on the other hand, is well-known for focusing on the top end of the market. It is common when companies are absorbed like this that the parent company will continue to claim that the relevant products will be marketed independently but in practice that never happens: salespeople prefer low hanging fruit and that is the existing client base. For all intents and purposes therefore we expect DataFlux sales to be concentrated on the SAS user base. This is also likely to mean that companies that are otherwise non-SAS users may move to other platforms in the fullness of time.

SAS has a rich partner program but it is difficult to isolate partners that are specific to Dataflux data profiling/discovery.

Customer numbers are measured in terms of thousands though how many of these are using profiling/discovery as opposed to other elements of the Data Management Platform is not clear. In any case it will be a significant number and many of these are household names.

Data profiling and discovery is a part of the DataFlux Data Management Platform, which is an integrated (truly integrated) platform with common metadata across the entire suite. It runs under Windows, Linux and AIX. JDBC and ODBC are supported and there are native drivers for Greenplum, DB2, Informix, MySQL, Oracle, Postgres, SQL Server and SAP Sybase. However, there are no facilities for supporting non-normalised data such as Oracle nested tables. On the other hand, COBOL copybooks are supported; along with text files; XML; and spreadsheets; as well as Hadoop and Hive.

SAS is a major worldwide organisation with offices all around the globe. DataFlux thus enjoys the consulting, support and training capabilities that one would expect from a company of the size of SAS.