4 Reasons Informatica Health Checks are Vital for Your Business

If you want to outperform your customers, you need real-time insights. Yet despite advances in data processing, most companies are a long way from achieving the speed necessary to hit this goal. Part of the reason is the sheer volume of data businesses are processing, but it’s also likely your system isn’t as efficient as it could be.

 
For most businesses, the ETL (extra, transform, loan) process is a key source of this slowdown. This process accounts for up to 80% of work on big data projects, and, in most systems, is the bottleneck that keeps the system from processing data at the desired speed.

Tools such as Informatica PowerCenter reduce the problem, but they’re not a one-time-solves-all solution. Without proper ongoing maintenance, faults and problems are almost certain.

To solve this problem, enterprises should use health checks to assess the performance of their software and ensure it is working at peak efficiency. We believe the business case for these health checks is clear; here are four reasons why:

Reason 1: Slow Movement of Data Compromises Your Ability To Make Accurate Decisions

Real-time analytics and decision making are impossible when it takes data two, three or even five days or more to process through your ETL system. This delay means your decision-makers are always looking at a snapshot of the past, rather than using the latest data; this is like driving a car while only looking through the rear-view mirror.

Regular health checks help spot and remove the inefficiencies that are preventing your business from getting a 360-view of your customers and sales. With more accurate and up-to-date data, your business can make better decisions, take advantage of new opportunities, and avoid potential risks.

Reason 2: Prevent Problems That Are Halting Your ETL Process

Health checks help you identify problems in your environment before they become serious. Without health checks, issues might not be spotted until either your system has slowed down significantly or crashed.

It’s quicker, cheaper and easier to spot and fix these problems before they happen; regular health checks will reduce both downtime and maintenance costs.

Reason 3: Help Administrators Work More Efficiently

When you only spot problems after they cause a significant problem, every issue takes additional time and resources to fix. Not only do your administrators have to solve the problem itself, but they also have to fix any consequences it has caused.

This is an inefficient use of your administrators’ time. Regular health checks put your team back in control, enabling them to spot and solve problems before they become emergencies. This minimizes unexpected problems, enables teams to fix issues quickly (before they cause a bigger issue), and helps them dedicate more of their time to value-added tasks.

Reason 4: The Amount of Data You Handle Is Only Going To Get Bigger

The IDC predicts that total data will soar to 163 zettabytes, or 163 trillion gigabytes, by 2025, several times what it is now. 60% of this will be created by enterprises. As your data grows, so will the business cost of the inefficiencies in your system.

Without regular health checks, the issues in your system will scale with your data pipeline, leaving your team playing catch-up as your system struggles to cope as the demands place on it grow.