The integration of data management and artificial intelligence is critical for driving innovations and efficiency across industries.

Companies are increasingly focusing on how to effectively manage and utilize data, both on-premise and in the cloud, to enhance AI capabilities. Strategic partnerships between tech giants, such as Informatica Inc. and Amazon Web Services Inc., are central to achieving these goals, as companies bring together complementary strengths and foster collaborative innovation. This synergy is essential for developing durable data frameworks and advancing AI-driven solutions that meet the complex needs of modern enterprises.

“This partnership is a definition of what that word strategic means,” said Gopi Sankaran (pictured right), vice president of strategic cloud ecosystems at Informatica. “Because when you think about, when you’re a launch partner of Amazon Redshift … from that timeframe, we have been working all across from deep integration with the engineering team, go to market efforts. That is the foundation for this partnership.”

Sankaran and Sri Raghavan (left), principal, data science and analytics, Amazon Marketplace at Amazon Web Services, spoke with theCUBE’s Rob Strechay and Rebecca Knight at Informatica World, during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media’s livestreaming studio. They discussed the fruitful and productive nature of the Informatica and AWS partnership, including the companies’ joint efforts in data management, AI integration and customer-centric innovation. (* Disclosure below.)

The importance of strategic partnerships in creating data management solutions

The longstanding partnership between Informatica and AWS, which has spanned 13 years, has been pivotal in driving innovation and creating integrated solutions for data management and AI. Informatica has been a launch partner for several AWS services, including S3, Redshift and Lake Formation, which only highlights the depth of the companies’ joint efforts, according to Raghavan.

“Our customers, joint customers, are thrilled that they’re able to adopt and adapt to Informatica on the cloud marketplace with AWS,” he said. “It’s a fantastic partnership, years in the making. The momentum has increased significantly and we’re thrilled with this relationship.”

In the realm of generative AI, the collaboration has made significant strides. By integrating Informatica’s data security and governance with AWS’s AI services, such as Amazon Bedrock, the partnership has created a seamless workflow for managing holistic data. This ensures that data is properly governed, secure and ready for AI models, which in turn provide enriched insights for customers.

“There are three important components within generative AI,” Raghavan said. “You need to have holistic data, you need to have data that’s trusted and you need to have good data governance. The data is then fed into the RAG architecture and then our native LLMs, like Titan, Claude and other LLMs, pick up all that information, enhance the models, provide enriched insights to the customers. It’s a very seamless workflow from the standpoint of being able to get the right holistic data, govern it, provide the right kinds of security to it, cleanse it, feed it into the LLM, address these various use cases.”

Innovation days and customer-centric solutions

One of the standout aspects of the Informatica and AWS partnership is the commitment to customer engagement through innovation days. These events provide hands-on experiences, allowing customers to see the practical application of integrated solutions. Innovation days are structured around specific use cases, such as fraud detection or master data management and are tailored to meet the unique needs of different industries, according to Raghavan.

“What these innovation days, these immersion days do is that they physically provide access to the AWS cloud where an Informatica solution is stood up and there are hands-on instructors there,” he said. “There’s a huge demand generation machine that works in the background to be able to get the right kinds of customers in place.”

These hands-on sessions are crucial for demonstrating the value of data governance, trusted data frameworks and AI integration. Customers gain a deeper understanding of how these solutions work in real-time, providing valuable feedback that drives continuous improvement. This approach ensures that the products and services developed are aligned with customer needs and industry standards, according to Sankaran.

“There’s a lot of work which gets done prior to getting into that innovation day because the innovation days can be of many formats,” he said. “It is a one-to-one, one to few, one to many and depends on that [for] how you structure the innovation day.”

Here’s the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE’s and theCUBE Research’s coverage of Informatica World:

(* Disclosure: Amazon Web Services Inc. and Informatica Inc. sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither AWS, Informatica nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.)

Photo: SiliconANGLE