The public cloud giant Amazon has its own fully managed data warehousing product, known as Amazon Redshift. Amazon boasts that Redshift is “the world’s fastest cloud data warehouse” and “costs less to operate” than any alternative on the market.

For more information on Integrate.io's native Redshift connector, visit our Integration page.

While Redshift is a mature and feature-rich cloud data warehouse option, Redshift customers also need a way for their files to enter the data warehouse in the first place. Enter platforms such as Alooma, which help users construct data migration pipelines from source data stores into the cloud.

Alooma has been a popular choice for automating the data extraction and integration process—so why are many users thinking about leaving Alooma?

In February 2019, Google announced that it would acquire Alooma for an undisclosed amount, launching speculation about the future of the service. Alooma announced that they will no longer support new customers who use non-Google data warehouses such as Redshift, Snowflake, and Microsoft Azure. Also, current Alooma customers will have to switch to Google BigQuery by March 2020.

Many Alooma customers who use Redshift are taking this time to find another data migration solution. If your business uses Snowflake, see our Snowflake Users: A Guide to Leaving Alooma blog article. If your business uses Alooma with Redshift, this article is for you. We will discuss the following: 

  1. Post-Acquisition Alooma
  2. Redshift Users: How to Leave Alooma
  3. Alooma Alternatives: AWS Glue
  4. Alooma Alternatives: Integrate.io
  5. Conclusion

Post-Acquisition Alooma

Alooma is a data migration company that helps users move enterprise data into a cloud data warehouse. By automating much of the data pipeline, Alooma lets you focus less on the technical details of implementation and more on the data-driven insights that you receive as a result. Alooma pre-acquisition was compatible with multiple data warehouses in the public cloud, including: Amazon Redshift, Microsoft Azure, Google BigQuery, and Snowflake.

Now, Alooma will no longer service new customers who are using other cloud providers besides Google Cloud Platform. However, Google has assured existing Alooma customers that services like Redshift, Snowflake, and Azure will retain legacy support until March 2020. Which, is now only a few months away.

Nevertheless, it’s clear that Alooma’s future now lies firmly with Google. Many Alooma customers using Redshift, Snowflake and other services are thus concerned about becoming the “red-headed stepchild” once the transition to Google is complete. This issue has propelled a growing number of Alooma customers or consider leaving the platform.

Redshift Users: How to Leave Alooma

Given the impending Google acquisition muddying the waters, it’s perhaps not surprising that some Redshift users are looking to migrate away from Alooma. Whichever ETL data migration solution you decide to go with, you should look for one with the following features:

  • Integrations: Your choice of cloud data migration platform should be capable of integrating all the enterprise data you want to move into your data warehouse, either with its standard feature set or via some tinkering.
  • Extensibility: If you plan to add more data sources in the future—or even if you don’t plan on it—it’s a smart idea to choose a solution that’s flexible and extensible.
  • Reliability and performance: ETL data pipelines should be capable of running essentially non-stop, with built-in fault tolerance included.
  • Security: If your business must be compliant with standards such as GDPR, HIPAA, or SOC 2, be sure to choose a data migration solution that explicitly meets these standards.
  • Support: Data migration can become difficult at times, as we all know. When you encounter problems on an ETL platform, a good support team is necessary. Image trying to decipher a vague error message without help. To avoid this, keep in mind the importance of support from your ETL solution team.

But if not for Alooma, where should you go next if you are a Redshift user?

Alooma Alternatives: AWS Glue

AWS Glue is Amazon’s own solution for ETL data pipelines. Glue is a fully managed ETL data migration solution that prepares and loads enterprise data for business intelligence and analytics.

Many current Redshift users will find that AWS Glue makes sense for their needs, especially if they want to remain in the Amazon ecosystem but again it's a single vendor solution. AWS Glue has received an average score of 4.1 out of 5 stars on G2 Crowd, based on 36 reviews. Users praise the “plug-and-play” nature of AWS Glue once the service has been set up. However, they note that the service is new, which makes it challenging to use with less documentation; they also complain that it has a Python developer focus and lacks a friendly user interface.

Alooma Alternatives: Integrate.io

Like Alooma, Integrate.io is a cloud data migration service that can perform both ETL and ELT (extract, load, transform) data workloads. Integrate.io comes equipped with over 120 pre-built data integrations with common data sources such as SQL databases, cloud storage, data analytics tools, and business intelligence platforms.

The benefits of Integrate.io include:

  • Pre-built integrations: Integrate.io comes with more than 120 pre-built integrations for common data sources. These include Snowflake, Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, MySQL, MongoDB, cloud storage services, analytics and advertising tools, and business intelligence platforms.
  • Security and compliance: For sensitive data and personal information, Integrate.io is compliant with standards such as GDPR, CCPA and HIPAA.
  • Customer support: Integrate.io offers personable customer support through chat and email, as well as an online knowledge base and documentation.

Integrate.io has been well-received by customers, who have given the platform 4.4 out of 5 stars on G2 Crowd, based on 83 reviews. This positive reception on the G2 Crowd website has given Integrate.io the title of Leader in the category of ETL Tools for summer 2019.

According to CTO Mike B. on G2 Crowd: “After evaluating 10 or so ETL providers, I went with Integrate.io because their service has a relatively straightforward GUI, but also allows for a fairly sophisticated level of configuration. Most of the time the GUI is sufficient, but I'm also able to script bits and pieces and add custom SQL to handle the weird edge cases, or make some of the large transfers more efficient.”

Meanwhile, digital analytics consultant Nick G. gives high marks to Integrate.io’s customer support: “Integrate.io is a cloud-based ETL tool that links to most of the sources and destinations that we need. When there is no native connector, the REST API connector will achieve the result we want, and the support team are always ready to jump in and help if needed. I also like the fact that the support team and comprehensive documentation is often focused on helping you learn to achieve the result you want, rather than doing the job for you.”

Integrate.io has had an equally warm reception on Capterra, where it has an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars. Users praise the software’s powerful capabilities, its ease of use, its intuitive user interface, and its wide variety of data integrations.

Conclusion

Over the years, Alooma has been a popular choice for users who need a robust and capable ETL data migration solution for cloud data warehouses. However, the recent news with Google has left many customers reevaluating their use of the platform and looking for an alternative to Alooma.

The good news is that there are a variety of cloud data migration solutions available for Alooma customers looking to make the switch, including Integrate.io. With Integrate.io’s user-friendly drag-and-drop interface and rich set of pre-built integrations, it’s easy for even non-technical users to get started constructing pipelines into Redshift or their choice of cloud data warehouse.

Looking for the right moment to jump ship from Alooma while keeping Redshift as your cloud data warehouse? There’s never been a better time than the present. Our team of data integration experts will help set up the solution that works best for your business needs and objectives. Get in touch with us today for a personalized demo of Integrate.io and a 7-day free trial of the platform.