The Secret behind A B I N I T I O.

Background on Abinitio :

Abinitio is considered one of the major ETL players  in line with informatica ,datastage ,SSIS ( if it can be considered major ETL player ;-) ) .In fact, in most respects it is considered better than all of the above . It has user interface and debugging simpler than Informatica  ( one of the positive points about informatica ) ,It has parallelism which data stage may still take years to reach .

Superiority :
(HearSay ) It has the ability to convert a 6 people ,6 month ETL project to 2 month 4 people ETL project . (Sounds hyperbole ,But yet it has been established in many cases that it takes half the development time compared to INFA with much better quality of code ) . Other statistics suggest that if you call Abinitio ,there is 75% chance you will be talking to a PhD holder.In other words it is considered to be ingenously simple.

Secrecy :

In spite of all this there is very little you would know about it (If at all ) .
Reason : It is so because Abinitio wants it that way.

If we look at some of the following questions

1. Who is the CEO of Abinitio
2. How much are the licensing fees ?
3. How big is Abinitio
4. What is the annual revenue ,turnover ,profit of Abinitio.

Simple google search will reveal  that this is not the information they want to reveal.

It is speculated that at one  point Wikipedia  probably had the most information collectively about Abinito ,but it is probably messed up :-)

So how does one go about buying Abinito product(s)  ?
Ans is : One does not .

For 'You do not select Abinito as an ETL tool .Abinitio chooses its own Partners ' is the famous adage. It gets most of its business from refferals and probably enough to keep its hands full for it has never advertised it self in any form.

One look at Abinitio website will reveal a lot ( By revealing very little :) )
http://www.abinitio.com/
Contrast this with informatica's full fledged website and you can see the difference between apporaches both the palyers have taken.
http://www.informatica.com/

Abinitio has often ( and not wrongly ) been accused of being elitist  .It does not sell software directly ,It will evaluate your needs and if they deem it suitable only then will they allow you to lay hands on the product . Thye usually do not entertain mid sized companies ( not that mid sized company could afford Abinitio easily ). Abinitio is excellent with very high volume files so it makes sense.

As to why so less has been written about the product itself ,It is because if you have at any point worked on Abinitio you owuld be required to sign an NDA ( Non Disclosure Agreement )  forbidding you to publish anything on Abinitio.There are no certifications ( AFAIK ) , very few study materials( if at all )  , no OFFICIAL third part training providers for Abinitio.




Now the million dollar question .

Why all these secrecy ? .Obvious answer to this seems to be that possible it is using a propreiatry technology . Rumors are that it might possibly be using some codes from Thinking Machine or SAS .( Most of Abinitio's founders are from Thinking Machine )



So is ABINITIO ,worth evaluating ? .From Consultant's point ,probably not .But from Client's point of view ;Possibly.


Note :
1: Rarely will you see any claim that Abinito has not lived upto its promise or has under delivered.Usually business partners are very impressed with Abinitio's performance and delivery.
2:Abinitio is not as much of an ETL tool as it is an EAI tool and Company is not an ETL tool provided it is more of a solution provider.

Disclaimer : I have never signed any agreement with Abinitio and above stated  are my 'views' and my alone.They do not reflect my employer's view/opinion in any way.