Question on various Alteryx platforms

[tww]

Hi all,

We are looking to purchase Alteryx license, but not sure which platform to go for.

I did some research on various Alteryx products, but I am still not clear., are Alteryx Designer, Alteryx Designer Cloud, Alteryx Server three different platforms, or are there just 2, i.e. Alteryx Designer and Alteryx Designer Cloud?

We are looking for a platform to achieve the following:

1) Ability to perform the analytics on large datasets (40G plus). I tried to run the workflows on Alteryx Designer desktop version, it seemed to take a while to process. I am wondering if the process time would improve on other platforms.

2) Ability to link/connect to our data lake and key applications to extract the data.

3) Ability to automate the workflow and to schedule the execution of workflows.

4) To allow us to build some alerts as part of continuous monitoring.

5) Integration with AuditBoard

We would like to get more information from the existing users before we make the decision.

Thank you

[martinding · Accepted solution]

Hi @tww,

I am no expert in this area, but here is my take on this subject:

1. The Alteryx Designer is suited for building the actual workflow. So that's your automation pipeline or your machine learning workflow.

2. The Alteryx Server is there to ensure that your organization can collaborate at scale. You can upload workflows from Alteryx Designer and schedule them to run. With the server, you have to set it up, configure and maintain it yourself.

3. The Alteryx Cloud on the other hand, allows you to do Designer and Server things in the cloud. So you don't need physical copies of Designer installed on your laptops and you don't need to actively manage and maintain your server (Alteryx will do that for you).

So the choice between Server and Cloud will come done to cost and flexibility. If your team wants to start small and gradually scale up, or don't want to spend too much time on maintenance, then Cloud sounds like a good choice.

[Yoshiro_Fujimori · Accepted solution]

@tww ,

I would recommend you contact Alteryx support, as it depends on each business case.

That said, here is my personal view.

1) Dealing with large datasets

There are In-DB tools in Desiger/ and Cloud to deal with large datasets in other databases.

As it relies on the performance of the database side, I understand the differene in Alteryx platform does not matter so much.

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Engine-Works/The-Ins-and-Outs-of-In-Database-Starting-with-Snowflak...

2) Connectivity with data lake / applications

It depends on what service you are using.

I see many connectors for Designer: https://help.alteryx.com/20223/designer/connectors

For Designer Cloud, it seems there are less options. (I am not sure as I am not a Cloud user.)

You can check the options here: https://docs.trifacta.com/display/AAC/Connections

3) Scheduling

Server and Designer Cloud has a scheduler function.

Designer can also schedule a job on your PC with add-on function "Designer plus Desktop Automation".

4) Alerts

It depends on what level you want to make alerts.

If you want to monitor each job;

Designer and Server outputs a log file for each job. So you may want to monitor it.

Not sure about Designer Cloud, but it seems to have job logs https://docs.trifacta.com/display/AAC/Overview+of+Job+Execution.

5) AuditBoard

I am not familiar with this area, but according to this post, 

"AuditBoard now integrates with Alteryx server".

https://community.alteryx.com/t5/Industry-Discussions/Alteryx-Integration-into-Audit-Work-Papers/m-p...

You should conslut with Alteryx support, but I also encourage you to touch and feel by yoursel.

As @martinding mentioned, if you want to start small and scale later,

you may try a small sets of Cloud and Desktop to compare the features.

If you find Designer Desktop tools and connector variations are more attractive,

then you may consider scaling out to Server.

Good luck.

[tww]

Thank you, @Yoshiro_Fujimori  for the info and links. Much appreciated.

[tww]

Thank you, @martinding for the high level overview.