Alation extends their strategic partner network to further develop data sources once again, with their Partner Program for Open Connector Framework.
Raj Gossain, Alation’s Chief Product Officer
Today, data intelligence vendor Alation is announcing the launch of their Partner Program for Open Connector Framework. The new program’s objective is to deliver connectivity to new data sources through the creation of an ecosystem of partners to expand connectivity options. This will be done with the Alation Open Connector Framework, an SDK that simplifies the development of Alation connectors.
“This builds on the Open Connector framework that we announced a few years ago, and extends the Open Data Quality Initiative that we announced in 2022,” said Raj Gossain, Alation’s Chief Product Officer. “We believe that data intelligence done right requires leveraging best of breed partners. That’s what this is about – recognizing that we are the most open and biggest ecosystem of data quality partners today. This provides an opportunity for partners to build and increase their business through this Framework. Our commitment is to have the largest set of data sources in the data intelligence business.”
While the new program builds on these predecessors that Alation had put in place earlier, some things have been added with the new program
“First, we have expanded the set of data platforms that the Open Connector Framework works with,” Gossain said. “A couple of named partners have also joined.” Logan Data is a Westford MA-based cloud and data consultancy, while New Jersey-based Information Asset, which is more of a systems integrator, are now both certified development partners within the program.
“This gives both us and the partners the opportunity to expand a set of data sources, and future-proofs their investments in Alation,” Gossain stated. Alation currently provides connectors to more than 80 data sources, including Snowflake, Databricks, AWS, and Tableau. Certified partners in the Partner Program for Open Connector Framework can build connectors to populate more metadata from the complex ecosystem into the Alation Data Catalogue. This in turn lets Alation customers extend visibility to a greater number of customer-specific BI platforms, databases, data transformation, pipeline tools, and cloud apps, to receive a more holistic view of their data.
Certified partners in the program receive an integration kit that provides guidance on how to best integrate and create unique connectors. Certification also provides the customary peace of mind for customers such programs are designed to create. They indicate that vendor-built connectors are trustworthy and will integrate seamlessly with Alation.
“The program also provides a set of educational content, onboarding context, training, access to SDK itself – and arm the partner with the expertise that they need,” Gossain said. “The best way to look at it is as a formalization program, which takes a standalone SDK and builds a comprehensive program around it.”
While Alation is committed to using the new program to build up a rich ecosystem of partners, the intent is to keep the number fairly select and not try to expand the development ecosystem to high numbers.
“We have a significant development in building connectivity beyond the 80 sources we have now, but don’t need a huge ecosystem to do this,” Gossain indicated.
