Manhattan Associates Discovers the Power of Deeply Connected Data Pipelines

Manhattan Associates, Inc. sells, deploys, services, and maintains software solutions designed to manage supply chains, inventory, and omnichannel operations for retailers, wholesalers, manufacturers, logistics providers, and other organizations.

As a software vendor, Manhattan Associates relies on Jira for internal and customer-facing product development. The scale and scope of the company’s Jira installation (both in the cloud and on-premises) is vast, to the degree that organizational success hinges on complete, accurate, and timely data from Jira. With its previous ETL software, Manhattan Associates couldn’t get the custom Jira data it relied on into its SQL Server database. Frustrated by inaccurate data pipelines and unpredictable yet ballooning costs from a usage-based pricing model, Manhattan Associates migrated its ETL work to CData Sync. With Sync, the organization gets robust data connections ready out-of-the-box and a fixed-cost license that equips its data team to scale pipeline creation across the business.

The challenge: Replicate the data they need—and none they don’t

Manhattan Associates has used several different data replication tools over time, but the inconsistent connectivity and metered pricing eventually proved too headache-inducing. For senior data analytics manager Anthony Neu and his team, one vendor, in particular, failed to back up its promise of providing strong integration. The ETL tool seemed sufficient on the surface, but deeper down, it revealed significant limitations. Ultimately, the tool was incapable of correctly replicating the specific Jira data they required.

In Neu’s experience, the results were unacceptable. The tool failed to replicate any of Manhattan Associates’ 200+ custom Jira fields and forced the replication of millions of rows of unwanted historical data. The erroneous data movement came at a real cost as Neu watched his pre-purchased allotment of replicated rows getting eaten up by unusable data.

Similarly, when a replicate job would fail, Neu and his team had to pore over log files to hunt down the cause. And when data did hit its destination cleanly, Neu’s team itself would be bogged down trying to minimize usage-based costs. This resulted in the need for an unmanageably intensive monitoring process, causing strain and reducing the team’s ability to move on to other work.

That sapped productivity sent Neu searching for a solution that could handle his enterprise-level Jira data the way he expected—and needed—while also allowing him to control his data movement costs. CData Sync provided Manhattan Associates with the deep connectivity it needed and enabled Neu to license software based on his number of pipeline connections instead of data volume.

The solution: Deeply connected data pipelines that predictably scale

CData Sync proved its worth as an agile end-to-end solution and demonstrated its superiority to Manhattan Associates’ previous process. Namely, Neu could replicate hundreds of custom Jira fields and omit unneeded historical data. Sync could also be hosted on a private Azure cloud, which not only fits within Manhattan Associates’ preferred infrastructure but also simplifies replicating data between cloud and on-premises systems.

“CData Sync didn’t require constant monitoring or troubleshooting, which presented it as a more efficient and effective option,”

–  Anthony Neu, Senior Data Analytics Manager, Manhattan Associates

Neu also liked the fixed-cost pricing model, which further eliminated the need for constant checks on data volumes. If he needs to run a new test that he knows will replicate 100 million rows to validate properly, Neu could do exactly that without worrying about the cost.

The outcome: Expanded, actionable data pipelines with less maintenance

As Neu and his team implemented Sync, they quickly realized that moving the right data more efficiently meant lower administrative overhead. Where the previous tool would fail and leave the team hunting through log files for a solution, Sync surfaced a problem’s cause and could restart where it left off.

Because of the reduced oversight burden and controlled costs, Manhattan Associates expanded Sync’s scope to also handle data pipelines involving Oracle, ServiceNow, Google Analytics, and Google BigQuery. In total, the organization replicates more than 500 million monthly rows of data through Sync—without Neu worrying about a sudden surge in his next bill.

With Sync-powered data pipelines providing the required depth and breadth of connectivity, Neu and his team equip more business users with meaningful, accurate data to analyze and put to work. As a business, Manhattan Associates is better able to streamline internal processes and serve its global customer base.

Derive business insights from your tech stack with CData Sync

CData allows organizations of any size to connect their entire data stack, providing timely, accurate information based on real-time data. CData Sync provides data integration pipelines from any source to any application – in the cloud or on-premises. Want to test it out? Get a 30-day free trial or take a tour.