CData Arc

CData Arc is the integration and automation product from CData, built for operations teams, integration specialists and IT groups that need to connect applications and data sources without hiring B2B developers for every project. The company's pages place it in the iPaaS (integration platform as a service) category and describe a visual, drag-and-drop way to build the connections. Arc is one product in a larger CData portfolio, which the company's main site now frames around connected data for AI.

What you build and how

The company describes Arc as a platform "that enables organizations to build integrations between applications, processes, and data, whether in the cloud or on-premises." The editor is visual. According to the company, its "intuitive visual drag-and-drop interface enables users to automate workflows, enhance operations, and harness analytics without the need for specialized B2B developer skills, reducing the reliance on custom coding and ongoing maintenance." The feature list on the Arc pages names 6 areas: Visual No Code B2B Integration, Managed File Transfer, Electronic Data Interchange, API and App Integration, Best In Class Connectivity, and Enterprise Reporting & Monitoring.

That list tells you what kind of builder this is. Arc is aimed at business-to-business plumbing: exchanging files and EDI documents with trading partners, wiring SaaS apps to internal systems, and API and app integration. If your job is to get orders, invoices, leads or inventory counts moving between systems on a schedule or on an event, that is the territory. It is not an app builder, a form tool or a website builder, and nothing on the pages suggests an end-user interface you design for customers. The people who see the result are the systems and the teams watching them.

Data connectivity is the base layer. The Arc article states that the platform connects to "250+ data sources," covering internal systems, external systems and SaaS platforms. CData's main site separately cites "350+ sources" for the company's wider connectivity layer, so treat 250+ as the Arc figure and 350+ as the company-wide one.

On the workflow side, the company's iPaaS explainer lists what this product class does and describes the pattern in concrete terms. Automated workflows move data between systems and reduce manual steps, giving connected systems real-time synchronization. The article's own examples show the shape of the work.

• A sales rep receives a lead from a specific type of company, and the lead is added automatically to a marketing campaign in a tool like Marketo.
• A customer places an order on an e-commerce platform, and the inventory system updates so stock counts stay accurate.
• A customer submits a support ticket, and the details land in the customer's record in a CRM like Salesforce.

These are the article's illustrations of iPaaS in general, introduced before it turns to Arc, so read them as the use cases the product is meant for rather than a feature checklist. The same article names e-commerce and B2B integration as a category of iPaaS and lists the usual hurdles: user adoption and training, the cost of the platform itself, and ongoing maintenance.

A second CData article, on enterprise automation, helps with the workflow-automation side of the entry. It separates rule-based automation, application-to-application data automation (its example is moving customer data between a CRM and an ERP), and AI or machine-learning automation. It also mentions Microsoft Power Automate and Zapier as popular no-code and low-code options. That context matters when you compare: Arc sits closer to integration and file exchange than to personal task automation.

Monitoring is named as a feature area ("Enterprise Reporting & Monitoring"), though the pages do not describe what the dashboards show, or how alerting and retries work, so confirm both in the trial.

The wider CData platform

The main CData site is where the company's current attention is. It describes CData as "the data layer that makes AI work in production," offering live connectivity and replication across 350+ sources, semantic context and built-in governance. The company says it powers AI for Databricks, Microsoft, Google and Palantir and serves 10,000+ customers worldwide. That is a company-level claim, not a count of Arc users.

Several siblings appear on the main site and are worth a sentence each because they are different products. Connect AI includes an MCP integration that lets assistants such as Claude query connected business data. An AI gateway pitch covers governing agents, with requests that carry the requester's identity and are logged. Data movement pages cover replicating data into Snowflake, Databricks and Microsoft Fabric for marketing, sales and finance use. Developer pages mention a CData CLI for AI coding assistants and a Python SDK that follows DB-API 2.0 and works with pandas and SQLAlchemy. None of these is Arc, and a team shopping for B2B integration should not assume they are bundled.

Evidence from the pages

Pricing: the pages publish no prices or plan names for Arc. The one commercial term stated is a "free 30-day trial," which the Arc article invites you to sign up for. A trial is not a free plan, and the pages do not say what the trial includes or what happens afterward.

Scale and claims: "250+ data sources" for Arc, "350+ sources" and "10,000+ customers worldwide" for CData as a whole. These are company statements.

Deployment: the developer pages describe 2 ways to run CData's developer-facing products, "We Run It For You" (managed) and "Run It Your Way" (self-hosted). The pages do not say whether Arc itself offers both, so confirm that before planning around it.

Security and enterprise controls: the main site mentions user provisioning with SCIM, managed authentication and SSO for the AI products. The Arc pages name no security certifications and no hosting regions.

Support: the Arc pages list Support and Documentation links and invite you to join the CData Community, where you can "ask questions, get answers, and share your knowledge." The main site adds a Support Center, Knowledge Base, Product Docs and a Subscription Manager.

Who it suits and who it does not

Arc fits an operations or integration team at a company that exchanges data with partners and runs several business systems, and wants a visual tool rather than hand-written scripts. EDI and managed file transfer in the same product are the real draw, and an IT group that wants one governed place for those flows can start from the 30-day trial.

It is a weaker fit for a solo founder who wants to build a customer-facing app or a lightweight Zapier-style automation between a handful of SaaS tools. Arc is built for B2B integration, and the company's own enterprise automation article treats Power Automate and Zapier as separate tools.

Two caveats are worth carrying into an evaluation. The absence of published pricing means you cannot budget before talking to the company. And because CData's site now leads with AI connectivity, check which of its products you are actually evaluating. The depth of the editor, error handling and monitoring is worth testing during the trial.