Several publications have recently reported on how our customer Levolor, a division of Rubbermaid, is using Talend Integration Suite to replace manual coding of their data integration processes.

• Loraine Lawson from IT Business Edge published Lessons Learned in Switching from Hand-Coding to a Data Integration Tool, an interview she did with John Shafer, application developer for the e-business portion of Levolor.  John gave Loraine this interesting conclusion: “From this, I’ve learned to definitely research open source, because it gives you the capability to look at a tool — especially if you’re coming from a situation where everything is hand-coded. You can take an existing problem, take a tool such as Talend, build that existing problem and see what’s going to happen, see what you’re going to run in to, see what questions come up. You can figure this out early without really any investment and see how you get there and start asking the questions.”
• Ian Palmer from Linux.com also interviewed John Shafer in Levolor leverages Talend to better manage floods of data. Interesting highlight from this article: “Before deciding to implement Talend more than six months ago, Levolor eyed a number of other alternatives, such as Business Objects’ Data Integrator, and it also took a look Jitterbit and Pentaho. While Shafer acknowledges that Levolor was not originally interested in an open source application, he says that flexibility, time constraints, and cost issues tipped the scale in the favor of Talend.”

More Talend users case studies coming soon…

Yves

We officially announced last week the start of a formal Talend Certification program.  This Certification is awarded to individuals who successfully complete a comprehensive online test covering all aspects of the use of Talend Open Studio in real-life situations.

This program is the result of a lengthy (and patient) design process.  We had to design the test (craft lots of relevant questions, organize them in several consistent sets so that the same questions would not be asked every time…), set the certification threshold, administer the test to a number of volunteers, etc.

The goal is pretty simple.  There is a larger and larger number of consultants and developers out there who say they are Talend experts.  With good reasons - more and more customers are looking for Talend expertise.  Most of these people are indeed experts.  But unfortunately a few aren’t.  Individuals who have received the Talend Certification will stand out from the crowd!

The Certification can be awarded to a consultant working for a Talend SI partner, or to a data integration developer working for a company using Talend.  However, one thing to remember: it is the individual who is certified, not his company.

• Are you a Talend developer or consultant and want to stand out? Get certified.
• Are you looking to hire Talend talent or seeking a SI who can get your project done?  Ask them if they have received the Talend certification.

Already 50 consultants (from SI partners) have received the Certification as part of our pre-launch (see our press release for some names).  We expect them to be in the hundreds by year end.

Yves