SSIS vs. Oracle Data Integrator

Question

Currently I am a Data Engineer that works mainly with SSIS. While reading about the ETL tools available in the market, i found that Oracle has its own ETL tool called ODI (Oracle Data integrator). I searched for an unbiased comparison between the Oracle Data Integrator and SSIS. I didn't find any article about that. There are some biased article such as :

• ETL Tools Comparison of Oracle ODI & Microsoft SSIS Tool -Dec 2014
• Competitive Comparison of SQL Server 2008 Integration Services

Based on Stackoverflow questions, there are about 16000 questions about SSIS while ODI has about 200 questions. Which mean that SSIS is more popular.

Is there any unbiased comparison between both technologies? And what are the services that ODI provides and that are not found in SSIS?

Please I am not looking for personal opinions, I need an unbiased answer

Erebus

I can't really comment on ODI vs. SSIS, but I did find this link, which has the most helpful information I could find about the features and capabilities of ODI: gerardnico.com/dit/odi/odi I'd think that if you considered yourself more of an Oracle dev, you might lean more towards ODI. – Perzan

How would you envision comparing the two: Cost? Feature set? Performance? – Dort

@Dort i want to know what are the features of ODI that are not found in SSIS. And if is it true that ODI guarantee higher performance?? – Erebus

What would "higher performance" entail? More stable? Faster loads of the same dataset? Less memory/cpu utilization for comparable workloads? And how much to you value ease-of-use? For example, at my job we use Astera Centerprise Data Integrator, which has some built-in features that SSIS doesn't (true folder monitoring, ignore line-endings inside of quoted text), but it is much more difficult and time-consuming to develop CDI packages. Because of that we choose SSIS for new ETL development. – Perzan

@Perzan After reading on many ETL tools, i think that SSIS is the most user-friendly tool, so from the ease of use perspective, i think that SSIS is better than the others. – Erebus

@Perzan concerning the performance. Oracle says that because they are using the ELT approach rather than ETL, they guarantee a faster performance than the traditional approach. I don't have much details on that – Erebus

@Erebus I'm curious how much of Oracle's "guarantee (of) faster performance" is marketing hype based around the fact that ELT solutions can generally ingest data much faster than ETL solutions can, since you don't need to wait for the data integration server to process and transform the data before it gets loaded. What kind of workloads are you going to be throwing at ODI/SSIS? Will your solutions need to be scalable? Will you be running workloads in the cloud? – Perzan

@Perzan i am not asking if ODI is betteI need to know what are the features that ODI contains and are not found in SSIS. Also concerning the performance, i don't think that ELT is always faster than ETL concerning the transformation phase. Also i don't know if ODI guarantee a row-by-row transformation like SSIS since it is using the ELT approach. – Erebus

There are so many other comparison points beyond features. For example, if you go the Oracle route are you going to need to employ an Oracle DBA? SSIS has an SCD component but it's not usable. Is cloud a consideration? If you really are on a greenfields project that requires tool selection it's not going to just be based on features, it's based on some selection criteria. My biased response is to not use Oracle due to cost and complication. Use SSIS but use an ELT approach. – Ablate

I am seeing lot helpful comments, while no one wrote an answer. I added a bounty on this question and i really need a good answer from an expert. While searching on this topic there is a lack on information on it while Oracle and Microsoft are leading companies in this domain and both product are widely used. So some Comparison should be found. I am aiming that these question become a reference for this topic. – Batholomew

The weird thing is that there is some SO posts comparing SSIS and Informatica or other technologies: (1) DTS SSIS vs. Informatica Power Center (2) SSIS vs. DTS performance (3) SSIS and Informatica (4) DTS vs. SSIS vs. Informatica vs. PL SQL Scripting – Batholomew

@Nick.McDermaid it looks like you know both technologies and you wrote helpful comments, why not writing an answer?? – Batholomew

Unfortunately, the bounty ended with no new answers, i will award it to the existing answer, even if i was looking for better answers. – Batholomew

Answer 1

If you are looking for an unbiased comparison of SSIS and ODI, you can refer to the following research paper published in 2017. It contains a comparison of five popular ETL tools including SSIS and ODI.

Comparison is in terms of performance optimisation, metadata management, cost, supported language, real time updates and other criterias.

• A Comparative Review of Data Warehousing ETL Tools with New Trends and Industry Insight

Jokjakarta

That is a very high level paper. – Ablate

@Nick.McDermaid i agree with that. But at least we can say that it is an unbiased comparison. – Erebus

@Nick.McDermaid At present, i don't think that we can find better answers. – Erebus

IMHO The question isn’t specific enough, and you need to pay for unbiased comparisons. Anyway good luck. – Ablate

@Nick.McDermaid the question is not for a specific situation. I am asking if ODI has some abilities that are not found in SSIS. – Erebus

I believe ODI auto generates Oracle code, which of course SSIS doesn’t do. But is that really something you care about? – Ablate

@Nick.McDermaid that is interesting for many usecases. For me SSIS is better than other technologies because of the ease of use and it is used by a wide community. Also you can find a lot of third party extensions that fits your needs. – Erebus