User:KotetsuKat/Pervasive Data Integrator

For other meanings of Data Integrator, see the Data_Integrator(disambiguation) page

Pervasive Data Integrator is an ETL and Enterprise Application Integration software toolset made by Pervasive Software. Its purpose is to save time over hand-coding data integration projects. Pervasive Data Integrator can automate the integration of data movement tasks on an event-driven, real-time, or regularly scheduled basis.

Pervasive Software also makes data quality profiling and matching tools that work with Pervasive Data Integrator for data analysis, cleansing and remediation tasks.

Uses
Pervasive Data Integrator is used for data conversion and migrations from old software to new, for point-to-point synchronizations between two or more applications, for Enterprise Application Integration including SOA architectures, for ETL types of data aggregation and Master Data Management projects, and for business to business data exchange. Pervasive Data Integrator is also frequently embedded in other software products, often invisibly, to provide a rapid migration path, or ongoing synchronization option. (Intuit's Quickbooks is an example, ) so is Daptiv Connect ).Web Service connectors provide SaaS application integration and hosted integration options.

History
(stub) Before Pervasive's acquisition of Data Junction Corporation in Dec. 2003, this application's predecessor was known as Data Junction and was created by the Data Junction Corporation, formerly known as Tools and Techniques.

Components
The Pervasive Data Integrator consists of a suite of tools, including a visual mapping tool, a workflow process designer, an execution engine, and various schema designers to help with complex data structure reading and writing.

Maps, relationships between source and target columns, are created in a point and click Windows GUI environment. Data transformations and conditional business logic can be defined with a simple functional scripting language, similar to Excel's. There are wizards for the transformation scripting for less technical users.

Processes, workflows that include multiple steps for end-to-end data processing, are also created in a visual flow-chart style designer. This designer can call out to other applications, allowing email, external validation programs, etc. to be part of the automated workflow.

Schemas, data file definitions that supply metadata for file reading and writing, are created in a variety of different visual designers, one for each type of data. EDI is handled in one point and click designer, flat files in another, and unstructured formats like email, HTML, and report or print files are handled by another.

All design specifications from the various designers are saved in XML specification files that the other designers can read, making the components fully internally integrated and making direct hacks that bypass the designers possible, and making them compatible with most version control systems. It also works with ODBC and JDBC compliant BI systems.

Integration execution is typically done on an event-driven, continuous or scheduled basis on a variety of platforms via an engine that has a command line interface, and several APIs. Execution can be done manually via the Process or Map GUI, for projects like one-time migrations.

Connectivity adapters are fairly comprehensive and packaged with the design tools, rather than being sold separately. They cover most types of data normally encountered; protocols like HTTP/HTTPS, FTP, SOAP, and general XML, most prominent databases, EDI formats, including healthcare specific HIPAA, HL7, and NCPDP formats, and even many mainframe and legacy binary formats, as well as SaaS and on-premise application APIs. Adapters are also extensible via Java plug-ins.

Environment
Pervasive Data Integrator is currently a Windows only graphic integration design tool. However, once design is completed, it allows execution on a variety of platforms, both 32 and 64 bit. Supported platforms include: Windows, Sun, HP-UX, AIX, and Linux. Pervasive also has a cloud option, powered by Amazon Web Services.

Installation
Installation is done via a standard Windows installer for the design tools, and takes about 10 minutes. Unix installation of the execution engine is done via zip file and takes about the same amount of time.

Analysis
Both analyst criticisms and compliments of Pervasive Data Integrator frequently revolve around its relatively low price for commercial integration software, and use in a variety of different integration architectures. Gartner specifies Pervasive Data Integrator's cheapness, use in a lot of different small strategic projects, instead of being used in a single standard way across large enterprises, as weaknesses, while Bloor lauds its cost effectiveness and versatility for multiple projects as strengths. Gartner also says that Pervasive tends to be underestimated because it is often embedded invisibly in other products.

Competition
Pervasive Data Integrator labels itself as a narrowly focused best of breed product in the Data Integration software market. While it is a small company, its direct competitors in the ETL space are giants, Datastage (recently acquired by IBM), Ab Initio software, BusinessObjects Data Integrator (now SAP), and Informatica. It also directly competes with ETL tools from database vendors such as Microsoft's SQL Server Integration Services (previously Data Transformation Services); analytics and BI vendors with an ETL component such as WebFOCUS's iWay Software; startups like Syncsort DMExpress, Embarcadero Technologies, Scribe, and Sunopsis; as well as indirect competitors in Enterprise Application Integration, Enterprise Service Bus and Application Server vendors like BEA Systems, TIBCO and WebMethods (now Software AG). There are a few small proprietary vendors such as Software Labs, expressor software, and open source products like Apatar, CloverETL, Pentaho Kettle and Talend as well.