CA TDM (DataMaker by Broadcom)

Top reasons why companies use
DATPROF vs CA Test Data Manager (DataMaker by Broadcom)

The DATPROF product family are a consistent set of products that share the same concepts and user interface principles. We want you to focus on having great quality test data available in the shortest period of time, so you can really focus on what’s important. All products are developed by the same people and are in the beginning of their life cycle. Software vendors like Broadcom aquire software to grow fast (like they did with CA Technologies), but this is not always good for the customer. The marketed solution consists below the surface of products with different interfaces and user experiences.

It’s DATPROF’s mission and core business to provide developers and testers with tools to get the best quality test data possible at the right time. For most vendors like Broadcom their products for Test Data Management are just a side product and one of their many products. Support, critical updates and new features cannot always be expected. DATPROF’s mission is to create and maintain affordable, smart and user friendly TDM solutions and we are working continuously to improve and bring new features to the products.

Our Test Data Management products are being improved on a daily basis. With an average of 35 releases on only the test data management products every year, DATPROF continues to improve, enhance and upgrade its test data management suite.

One of DATPROF core values is ease of use. It is not the ambition the only have the most functionalities. We deliver a user friendly and understandable user interface which shows the user the most used and most needed functionality within a few simple clicks.

“The UI of DATPROF is many years ahead of DataMaker.”
→ Read full review on PeerSpot

Both DATPROF and CA Test Data Manager (by Broadcom) offer a variety of technical capabilities like data masking, data subsetting and the integration/automation into an existing CI/CD pipeline. All functionalities can be used, whereas in CA TDM they have a portal and a standalone application.

“The standalone application is more old-fashioned. When you write rules on this old-fashioned interface, because it has more complex functions available for use, you can’t migrate them to the portal.” (Source: IT Central Station)

One of the biggest differences between DATPROF and CA Test Data Manager is performance. When you push much data into the target, sometimes CA Test Data Manager is not able to handle it. DATPROF however has proved to be super-fast.

Both tools are so called ‘module’ driven: you can add different modules to the total solution. For example you can only use a data protection module, if that’s the one you need. Both tools are also scalable on a technology level. If you want to add a (database) technology you can and you’ll only pay for it when needed. The benefit of DATPROF is that you don’t pay according to size. Size isn’t a metric for the pricing of the DATPROF solution.

In comparison with DATPROF, there are some serious system requirements to get the CA Test Data Manager solution installed. Where DATPROF is easy to install and get started (it only takes 200MB of your storage), for CA Test Data Manager you need at least 20GB of storage space in the first year only.

Broadcom is an organization which primarily focuses on Mainframe. Their main interest isn’t test data management, their main interest is to offer a full solution for Mainframe. The upside of this is that when your data is mainly on Mainframe systems, you’ll be in the driver’s seat. The downside is that whenever you (also) have data in other systems, life gets a little harder. DATPROF doesn’t support Mainframe, but focuses on all major relational databases like Microsoft SQL Server, PostgreSQL, Oracle, DB2 LUW, DB2 iSeries, MySQL, MariaDB etc. Also, when you have data stored in another RDBMS you can request native support for this system.

Because of the difference in strategy, the DATPROF Support is different from CA Test Data Manager (by Broadcom). As CA Test Data Manager focuses on ‘only’ mainframe in their strategy, support tickets for other technologies may take more time. As for DATPROF it is really important that tickets get a follow up and that we are able to support customers with their test data management challenges in the best way possible. DATPROF Support takes every ticket seriously and these tickets don’t end up in a black hole as we now happens at some companies.

“With DataMaker, we needed to raise a request, and then every time, there used to be some other person on the call for support. We used to explain things time and time over again, which frustrated us. They were not able to provide the solutions that we wanted, whereas with DATPROF, Gerard and Michael are just a call away, and they are willing to extend themselves to provide us with the right support.”
→ Read full review on PeerSpot

DATPROF’s license model and pricing is based on which modules and technology you are using. Vendors like Broadcom base their pricing on how many gigabytes you store. Your storage footprint will probably grow and the license costs will growth with it. With DATPROF your license costs will stay the same, even if your production data is growing.

Both solutions will help you save a lot of manual time of trying to create test data. It also shortens your test cycle time, allowing you to focus even more on quality. People can actually do the work they’re hired to do, not wasting their time on creating test data. Thousands of hours and even millions of dollars can be saved this way. The big difference between DATPROF and Broadcom in ROI? Licensing. Broadcom turns out to be quite expensive, while we see that DATPROF licensing fits most budgets.