Velocity Introduction

An Introduction to Velocity

Velocity's Strategies and Solutions are your guide to developing and implementing world-class data management architectures and data management solutions to govern your valuable enterprise-wide data assets. Informatica Velocity reaffirms our commitment to providing Informatica users with guidance and strategy for the most effective way to leverage the Informatica platform.

Velocity was first introduced by the Informatica Professional Services (IPS) organization in May of 1999. The objectives of the initial release were to consolidate the various "tips and techniques" and "best practice guides" circulating in the Informatica community. A relatively simple, four-phase data warehouse development method was created to provide a project context for these best practices. Recognizing its simplistic structure, the document was published as a "guide" to developing enterprise decision support applications.

Since that initial release, the breadth and depth of Velocity has grown each year. It has been utilized successfully on numerous Informatica-focused implementation projects assisting in the development of project plans, serving as a refresher for experienced practitioners returning to the use of Informatica products, and as a source of guidance for numerous Informatica developers and implementers.

As the role of Data Integration and Data Management has grown across the enterprise, as well as migrated to the Cloud, so has Informatica Velocity. Key solutions such as Data Warehouse Modernization, Data Catalog, and Data Access and Provisioning have been added to the methodology. As enterprises deploy Informatica solutions in the cloud for the first time or migrate existing on-premise solutions to their new cloud-based equivalent – Velocity will continue to expand and evolve to cover these solutions with new content being added continuously throughout the year. 

Objectives of Velocity

Velocity is intended to provide experience and knowledge to the users of Informatica data integration products and services and to provide business-level value both at an enterprise and project level. The overall objective is simple -- to improve the likelihood of success with Informatica products as the platform provides the technology behind several key corporate data initiatives.

At the strategy level, Velocity recognizes that organizations are not content to simply deliver on individual data integration projects as standalone efforts. Organizations have come to realize that to provide the highest return on investment and to secure and leverage their critical data assets, coordinated strategies should be implemented across all Data Management and Data Integration solutions. Velocity addresses these key enterprise strategies with practical views on how to engage the organization to deliver on these enterprise strategies.

At the solution level, Velocity has been organized into three key data management journeys: Cloud Data Warehouse & Data Lake, 360 Engagement, and Data Governance & Privacy. Within these journeys, several key solutions have been detailed to describe common data management solutions at the forefront of today’s Chief Data Officers. These are not the only solutions possible, but the most applicable to our customer community. The detailed resources supporting these solutions can also be leveraged for any number of additional solutions. For this purpose, we have organized the next level of content for delivering these solutions at the journey level. Many of the assets apply across solutions such as Data Quality Best Practices that are as applicable to stand-alone data quality efforts as they are in a Data Privacy or a Regulatory Compliance solution.

The solution-level assets have been organized in stages by journey using the PIMO model:​​​​​​​

• Plan – Captures assets and guidance related to planning your implementation from sample project plans and roadmaps to project organization charts. This will help you understand who needs to be involved and what skills and capabilities you need to successfully deliver your solution.
• Implement – Captures our best practices and accelerators related to project implementations. 
• Monitor – This area is dedicated to guidance around how to operate or manage the solution once it has been developed and put into a production state. 
• Optimize – Here we are exposing guidance around how to extend and expand your solution once the initial success has been delivered.

Rather than full coverage of every step of every project, the items categorized here in the PIMO structure are intended to be focused on those key areas and best practices that are most important to drive successful implementations. 

Informatica Professional Services contributes regular updates to these assets as our project experience evolves and our cloud platform continues to be enhanced with new capabilities enabling even more possible solutions. We will continue to provide updates continuously throughout the year so be sure to check back for new and updated content.

Conclusion

The main purpose of Velocity is to share our understanding, knowledge, and experience in delivering world-class data management solutions using the Informatica Platform. The focus for Velocity is on the process or the recipe for success to help you better plan and execute a solution using Informatica technology so you can avoid common mistakes and increase your chance of success. Our goal is for you to make the best use of your Informatica investment to drive world-class data management in your organization. Our Professional Services team will continue to contribute here as our vehicle for sharing as much implementation know-how as possible from our successful customer project implementations.