Informatica >> Beginners >> Informatica Transformations

Informatica Transformations
Aggregator Transformation
Aggregator transformation performs aggregate funtions like average, sum, count etc. on
multiple rows or groups. The Integration Service performs these calculations as it reads and
stores data group and row data in an aggregate cache. It is an Active & Connected
transformation.
Difference b/w Aggregator and Expression Transformation? Expression transformation
permits you to perform calculations row by row basis only. In Aggregator you can perform
calculations on groups.
Aggregator transformation has following ports State, State_Count, Previous_State and
State_Counter.
Components: Aggregate Cache, Aggregate Expression, Group by port, Sorted input.
Aggregate Expressions: are allowed only in aggregate transformations. can include
conditional clauses and non-aggregate functions. can also include one aggregate function
nested into another aggregate function.
Aggregate Functions: AVG, COUNT, FIRST, LAST, MAX, MEDIAN, MIN, PERCENTILE,
STDDEV, SUM, VARIANCE
Application Source Qualifier Transformation
Represents the rows that the Integration Service reads
from an application, such as an ERP source, when it
runs a session.It is an Active & Connected
transformation.

Custom Transformation
It works with procedures you create outside the designer interface to extend PowerCenter
functionality. calls a procedure from a shared library or DLL. It is active/passive & connected
type.
You can use CT to create T. that require multiple input groups and multiple output groups.
Custom transformation allows you to develop the transformation logic in a procedure. Some
of the PowerCenter transformations are built using the Custom transformation. Rules that
apply to Custom transformations, such as blocking rules, also apply to transformations built
using Custom transformations. PowerCenter provides two sets of functions called generated
and API functions. The Integration Service uses generated functions to interface with the
procedure. When you create a Custom transformation and generate the source code files,
the Designer includes the generated functions in the files. Use the API functions in the
procedure code to develop the transformation logic.
Difference between Custom and External Procedure Transformation? In Custom T, input and
output functions occur separately.The Integration Service passes the input data to the
procedure using an input function. The output function is a separate function that you must
enter in the procedure code to pass output data to the Integration Service. In contrast, in
the External Procedure transformation, an external procedure function does both input and
output, and its parameters consist of all the ports of the transformation.
ata Masking Transformation
Passive & Connected. It is used to change sensitive
production data to realistic test data for non production
environments. It creates masked data for
development, testing, training and data mining. Data
relationship and referential integrity are maintained in
the masked data.

For example: It returns masked value that has a realistic format for SSN, Credit card
number, birthdate, phone number, etc. But is not a valid value. Masking types: Key Masking,
Random Masking, Expression Masking, Special Mask format. Default is no masking.
Expression Transformation
Passive & Connected. are used to perform non-aggregate functions, i.e to calculate values in
a single row. Example: to calculate discount of each product or to concatenate first and last
names or to convert date to a string field.
You can create an Expression transformation in the Transformation Developer or the
Mapping Designer. Components: Transformation, Ports, Properties, Metadata Extensions.
External Procedure
Passive & Connected or Unconnected. It works with procedures you create outside of the
Designer interface to extend PowerCenter functionality. You can create complex functions
within a DLL or in the COM layer of windows and bind it to external procedure
transformation. To get this kind of extensibility, use the Transformation Exchange (TX)
dynamic invocation interface built into PowerCenter. You must be an experienced
programmer to use TX and use multi-threaded code in external procedures.
Filter Transformation
Active & Connected. It allows rows that meet the specified filter condition and removes the
rows that do not meet the condition. For example, to find all the employees who are
working in NewYork or to find out all the faculty member teaching Chemistry in a state. The
input ports for the filter must come from a single transformation. You cannot concatenate
ports from more than one transformation into the Filter transformation. Components:
Transformation, Ports, Properties, Metadata Extensions.
HTTP Transformation
Passive & Connected. It allows you to connect to an
HTTP server to use its services and applications. With
an HTTP transformation, the Integration Service

connects to the HTTP server, and issues a request to
retrieves data or posts data to the target or
downstream transformation in the mapping.
Authentication types: Basic, Digest and NTLM. Examples: GET, POST and SIMPLE POST.
ava Transformation
Active or Passive & Connected. It provides a simple native programming interface to define
transformation functionality with the Java programming language. You can use the Java
transformation to quickly define simple or moderately complex transformation functionality
without advanced knowledge of the Java programming language or an external Java
development environment.
oiner Transformation
Active & Connected. It is used to join data from two related heterogeneous sources residing
in different locations or to join data from the same source. In order to join two sources,
there must be at least one or more pairs of matching column between the sources and a
must to specify one source as master and the other as detail. For example: to join a flat file
and a relational source or to join two flat files or to join a relational source and a XML source.
The Joiner transformation supports the following types of joins:
O Normal
Normal join discards all the rows of data from the master and detail source that do
not match, based on the condition.
O Master Outer
Master outer join discards all the unmatched rows from the master source and keeps
all the rows from the detail source and the matching rows from the master source.
O Detail Outer
Detail outer join keeps all rows of data from the master source and the matching
rows from the detail source. It discards the unmatched rows from the detail source.
O Full Outer
Full outer join keeps all rows of data from both the master and detail sources.
Limitations on the pipelines you connect to the Joiner transformation:
*You cannot use a Joiner transformation when either input pipeline contains an Update
Strategy transformation.
*You cannot use a Joiner transformation if you connect a Sequence Generator
transformation directly before the Joiner transformation.
ookup Transformation
Passive & Connected or UnConnected. It is used to look up data in a flat file, relational table,
view, or synonym. It compares lookup transformation ports (input ports) to the source
column values based on the lookup condition. Later returned values can be passed to other
transformations. You can create a lookup definition from a source qualifier and can also use
multiple Lookup transformations in a mapping.
You can perform the following tasks with a Lookup transformation:
*Get a related value. Retrieve a value from the lookup table based on a value in the source.
For example, the source has an employee ID. Retrieve the employee name from the lookup
table.
*Perform a calculation. Retrieve a value from a lookup table and use it in a calculation. For
example, retrieve a sales tax percentage, calculate a tax, and return the tax to a target.
*Update slowly changing dimension tables. Determine whether rows exist in a target.
ookup Components: Lookup source, Ports, Properties, Condition.
Types of ookup:
1) Relational or flat file lookup.
2) Pipeline lookup.
3) Cached or uncached lookup.
4) connected or unconnected lookup.

Informatica Transformations
Normalizer Transformation
Active & Connected. The Normalizer transformation processes multiple-occurring columns or
multiple-occurring groups of columns in each source row and returns a row for each
instance of the multiple-occurring data. It is used mainly with COBOL sources where most of
the time data is stored in de-normalized format.
You can create following Normalizer transformation:
*VSAM Normalizer transformation. A non-reusable transformation that is a Source Qualifier
transformation for a COBOL source. VSAM stands for Virtual Storage Access Method, a file
access method for IBM mainframe.
*Pipeline Normalizer transformation. A transformation that processes multiple-occurring
data from relational tables or flat files. This is default when you create a normalizer
transformation.
Components: Transformation, Ports, Properties, Normalizer, Metadata Extensions.
Rank Transformation
Active & Connected. It is used to select the top or bottom rank of data. You can use it to
return the largest or smallest numeric value in a port or group or to return the strings at the
top or the bottom of a session sort order. For example, to select top 10 Regions where the
sales volume was very high or to select 10 lowest priced products. As an active
transformation, it might change the number of rows passed through it. Like if you pass 100
rows to the Rank transformation, but select to rank only the top 10 rows, passing from the
Rank transformation to another transformation. You can connect ports from only one
transformation to the Rank transformation. You can also create local variables and write
non-aggregate expressions.
Router Transformation
Active & Connected. It is similar to filter transformation
because both allow you to apply a condition to test
data. The only difference is, filter transformation drops
the data that do not meet the condition whereas router
has an option to capture the data that do not meet the
condition and route it to a default output group.
If you need to test the same input data based on
multiple conditions, use a Router transformation in a
mapping instead of creating multiple Filter
transformations to perform the same task. The Router
transformation is more efficient.

Sequence Generator Transformation
Passive & Connected transformation. It is used to create unique primary key values or cycle
through a sequential range of numbers or to replace missing primary keys.
It has two output ports: NEXTVAL and CURRVAL. You cannot edit or delete these ports.
Likewise, you cannot add ports to the transformation. NEXTVAL port generates a sequence
of numbers by connecting it to a transformation or target. CURRVAL is the NEXTVAL value
plus one or NEXTVAL plus the Increment By value.
You can make a Sequence Generator reusable, and use it in multiple mappings. You might
reuse a Sequence Generator when you perform multiple loads to a single target.
For non-reusable Sequence Generator transformations, Number of Cached Values is set to
zero by default, and the Integration Service does not cache values during the session.For
non-reusable Sequence Generator transformations, setting Number of Cached Values
greater than zero can increase the number of times the Integration Service accesses the
repository during the session. It also causes sections of skipped values since unused cached
values are discarded at the end of each session.
For reusable Sequence Generator transformations, you can reduce Number of Cached
Values to minimize discarded values, however it must be greater than one. When you
reduce the Number of Cached Values, you might increase the number of times the
Integration Service accesses the repository to cache values during the session.
Sorter Transformation
Active & Connected transformation. It is used sort data
either in ascending or descending order according to a
specified sort key. You can also configure the Sorter
transformation for case-sensitive sorting, and specify
whether the output rows should be distinct. When you
create a Sorter transformation in a mapping, you
specify one or more ports as a sort key and configure

each sort key port to sort in ascending or descending
order.
Source Qualifier Transformation
Active & Connected transformation. When adding a relational or a flat file source definition
to a mapping, you need to connect it to a Source Qualifier transformation. The Source
Qualifier is used to join data originating from the same source database, filter rows when
the Integration Service reads source data, Specify an outer join rather than the default
inner join and to specify sorted ports.
It is also used to select only distinct values from the source and to create a custom query to
issue a special SELECT statement for the Integration Service to read source data
SQ Transformation
Active/Passive & Connected transformation. The SQL transformation processes SQL queries
midstream in a pipeline. You can insert, delete, update, and retrieve rows from a database.
You can pass the database connection information to the SQL transformation as input data
at run time. The transformation processes external SQL scripts or SQL queries that you
create in an SQL editor. The SQL transformation processes the query and returns rows and
database errors.
Stored Procedure Transformation
Passive & Connected or UnConnected transformation. It is useful to automate time-
consuming tasks and it is also used in error handling, to drop and recreate indexes and to
determine the space in database, a specialized calculation etc. The stored procedure must
exist in the database before creating a Stored Procedure transformation, and the stored
procedure can exist in a source, target, or any database with a valid connection to the
Informatica Server. Stored Procedure is an executable script with SQL statements and
control statements, user-defined variables and conditional statements.
Transaction Control Transformation
Active & Connected. You can control commit and roll back of transactions based on a set of
rows that pass through a Transaction Control transformation. Transaction control can be
defined within a mapping or within a session.
Components: Transformation, Ports, Properties, Metadata Extensions.
Union Transformation
Active & Connected. The Union transformation is a multiple input group transformation that
you use to merge data from multiple pipelines or pipeline branches into one pipeline branch.
It merges data from multiple sources similar to the UNION ALL SQL statement to combine
the results from two or more SQL statements. Similar to the UNION ALL statement, the
Union transformation does not remove duplicate rows.
Rules
1) You can create multiple input groups, but only one output group.
2) All input groups and the output group must have matching ports. The precision, datatype,
and scale must be identical across all groups.
3) The Union transformation does not remove duplicate rows. To remove duplicate rows,
you must add another transformation such as a Router or Filter transformation.
4) You cannot use a Sequence Generator or Update Strategy transformation upstream from
a Union transformation.
5) The Union transformation does not generate transactions.
Components: Transformation tab, Properties tab, Groups tab, Group Ports tab.
Unstructured ata Transformation
Active/Passive and connected. The Unstructured Data transformation is a transformation
that processes unstructured and semi-structured file formats, such as messaging formats,
HTML pages and PDF documents. It also transforms structured formats such as ACORD,
HIPAA, HL7, EDI-X12, EDIFACT, AFP, and SWIFT.
Components: Transformation, Properties, UDT Settings, UDT Ports, Relational Hierarchy.
Update Strategy Transformation
Active & Connected transformation. It is used to update data in target table, either to
maintain history of data or recent changes. It flags rows for insert, update, delete or reject
within a mapping.
XM Generator Transformation
Active & Connected transformation. It lets you create XML inside a pipeline. The XML
Generator transformation accepts data from multiple ports and writes XML through a single
output port.
XM Parser Transformation
Active & Connected transformation. The XML Parser transformation lets you extract XML
data from messaging systems, such as TIBCO or MQ Series, and from other sources, such
as files or databases. The XML Parser transformation functionality is similar to the XML
source functionality, except it parses the XML in the pipeline.
XM Source Qualifier Transformation
Active & Connected transformation. XML Source Qualifier is used only with an XML source
definition. It represents the data elements that the Informatica Server reads when it
executes a session with XML sources. has one input or output port for every column in the
XML source.
External Procedure Transformation
Active & Connected/UnConnected transformation.
Sometimes, the standard transformations such as
Expression transformation may not provide the
functionality that you want. In such cases External
procedure is useful to develop complex functions within
a dynamic link library (DLL) or UNIX shared library,
instead of creating the necessary Expression
transformations in a mapping.

Advanced External Procedure Transformation
Active & Connected transformation. It operates in conjunction with procedures, which are
created outside of the Designer interface to extend PowerCenter/PowerMart functionality. It
is useful in creating external transformation applications, such as sorting and aggregation,
which require all input rows to be processed before emitting any output rows.

Business Case: Why do we need ET Tools?
Think of GE, the company has over 100+ years of history & presence in almost all the
industries. Over these years companys management style has been changed from book
keeping to SAP. This transition was not a single day transition. In transition, from book
keeping to SAP, they used a wide array of technologies, ranging from mainframes to PCs,
data storage ranging from flat files to relational databases, programming languages ranging
from Cobol to Java. This transformation resulted into different businesses, or to be precise
different sub businesses within a business, running different applications, different hardware
and different architecture. Technologies are introduced as and when invented & as and
when required.
This directly resulted into the scenario, like HR department of the company running on
Oracle Applications, Finance running SAP, some part of process chain supported by
mainframes, some data stored on Oracle, some data on mainframes, some data in VSM files
& the list goes on. If one day company requires a consolidated reports of assets, there are
two ways.
O First completely manual, generate
different reports from different
systems and integrate them.
O Second fetch all the data from
different systems/applications, make a
Data Warehouse, and generate reports
as per the requirement.

Obviously second approach is going to be the best.
Now to fetch the data from different systems, making it coherent, and loading into a Data
Warehouse requires some kind of extraction, cleansing, integration, and load. ETL stands for
Extraction, Transformation & Load.
ETL Tools provide facility to Extract data from different non-coherent systems, cleanse it,
merge it and load into target systems.
What is Informatica?
Informatica is a tool, supporting all the steps of Extraction, Transformation and Load
process. Now a days Informatica is also being used as an Integration tool.
Informatica is an easy to use tool. It has got a simple visual interface like forms in visual
basic. You just need to drag and drop different objects (known as transformations) and
design process flow for Data extraction transformation and load. These process flow
diagrams are known as mappings. Once a mapping is made, it can be scheduled to run as
and when required. In the background Informatica server takes care of fetching data from
source, transforming it, & loading it to the target systems/databases.
Informatica can communicate with all major data sources (mainframe/RDBMS/Flat
Files/XML/VSM/SAP etc), can move/transform data between them. It can move huge
volumes of data in a very effective way, many a times better than even bespoke programs
written for specific data movement only. It can throttle the transactions (do big updates in
small chunks to avoid long locking and filling the transactional log). It can effectively join
data from two distinct data sources (even a xml file can be joined with a relational table). In
all, Informatica has got the ability to effectively integrate heterogeneous data sources &
converting raw data into useful information.
Before we start actually working in Informatica, lets have an idea about the company
owning this wonderful product.
Some facts and figures about Informatica Corporation:
O Founded in 1993, based in Redwood City,
California
O 1400+ Employees; 3450 + Customers; 79 of
the Fortune 100 Companies
O NASDAQ Stock Symbol: INFA; Stock Price:
$18.74
(09/04/2009)

O Revenues in fiscal year 2008: $455.7M
O Informatica Developer Networks: 20000
Members

In short, Informatica is worlds leading ETL tool & its rapidly acquiring market as an
Enterprise Integration Platform.
Informatica Software Architecture illustrated
Informatica ETL product, known as Informatica Power Center consists of 3 main components.
1. Informatica PowerCenter Client Tools:
These are the development tools installed at developer end. These tools enable a developer
to
O Define transformation process, known as mapping. esigner)
O Define run-time properties for a mapping, known as sessions Workflow Manager)
O Monitor execution of sessions Workflow Monitor)
O Manage repository, useful for administrators Repository Manager)
O Report Metadata Metadata Reporter)
2. Informatica PowerCenter Repository:
Repository is the heart of Informatica tools. Repository is a kind of data inventory where all
the data related to mappings, sources, targets etc is kept. This is the place where all the
metadata for your application is stored. All the client tools and Informatica Server fetch data
from Repository. Informatica client and server without repository is same as a PC without
memory/harddisk, which has got the ability to process data but has no data to process. This
can be treated as backend of Informatica.
3. Informatica PowerCenter Server:
Server is the place, where all the executions take
place. Server makes physical connections to
sources/targets, fetches data, applies the
transformations mentioned in the mapping and loads
the data in the target system.
This architecture is visually explained in diagram
below:

Sources




Standard: RDBMS,
Flat Files, XML, ODBC


Applications: SAP
R/3, SAP BW,
PeopleSoft, Siebel, JD
Edwards, i2


EAI: MQ Series,
Tibco, JMS, Web
Services


egacy: Mainframes
(DB2, VSAM, IMS,
IDMS, Adabas)AS400
(DB2, Flat File)


Remote Sources

Targets




Standard: RDBMS,
Flat Files, XML, ODBC


Applications: SAP
R/3, SAP BW,
PeopleSoft, Siebel, JD
Edwards, i2


EAI: MQ Series,
Tibco, JMS, Web
Services


egacy: Mainframes
(DB2)AS400 (DB2)


Remote Targets
This is the sufficient knowledge to start with Informatica. So lets go straight to development
in Informatica.
Informatica Product Line
InIormatica is a powerIul ETL tool Irom InIormatica Corporation, a leading provider oI enterprise data integration
soItware and ETL soItwares.
The important products provided by InIormatica Corporation is provided below:
O !ower Center
O !ower Mart
O !ower Exchange
O !ower Center Connect
O !ower Channel
O Metadata Exchange
O !ower Analyzer
O $uper Glue

Power Center & Power Mart: !ower Mart is a departmental version oI InIormatica Ior building, deploying, and
managing data warehouses and data marts. !ower center is used Ior corporate enterprise data warehouse and power
mart is used Ior departmental data warehouses like data marts. !ower Center supports global repositories and
networked repositories and it can be connected to several sources. !ower Mart supports single repository and it can
be connected to Iewer sources when compared to !ower Center. !ower Mart can extensibily grow to an enterprise
implementation and it is easy Ior developer productivity through a codeless environment.
Power Exchange: InIormatica !ower Exchange as a stand alone service or along with !ower Center, helps
organizations leverage data by avoiding manual coding oI data extraction programs. !ower Exchange supports batch,
real time and changed data capture options in main Irame(DB2, V$AM, IM$ etc.,), mid range (A$ DB2 etc.,),
and Ior relational databases (oracle, sql server, db2 etc) and Ilat Iiles in unix, linux and windows systems.
Power Center Connect: This is add on to InIormatica !ower Center. It helps to extract data and metadata Irom
ER! systems like IBM's MQ$eries, !eoplesoIt, $A!, $iebel etc. and other third party applications.
Power Channel: This helps to transIer large amount oI encrypted and compressed data over LAN, WAN, through
Firewalls, tranIer Iiles over FT!, etc.
Meta Data Exchange: Metadata Exchange enables organizations to take advantage oI the time and eIIort already
invested in deIining data structures within their IT environment when used with !ower Center. For example, an
organization may be using data modeling tools, such as Erwin, Embarcadero, Oracle designer, $ybase !ower
Designer etc Ior developing data models. Functional and technical team should have spent much time and eIIort in
creating the data model's data structures(tables, columns, data types, procedures, Iunctions, triggers etc). By using
meta deta exchange, these data structures can be imported into power center to identiIiy source and target mappings
which leverages time and eIIort. There is no need Ior inIormatica developer to create these data structures once
again.
Power Analyzer: !ower Analyzer provides organizations with reporting Iacilities. !owerAnalyzer makes accessing,
analyzing, and sharing enterprise data simple and easily available to decision makers. !owerAnalyzer enables to
gain insight into business processes and develop business intelligence.
With !owerAnalyzer, an organization can extract, Iilter, Iormat, and analyze corporate inIormation Irom data stored
in a data warehouse, data mart, operational data store, or otherdata storage models. !owerAnalyzer is best with a
dimensional data warehouse in a relational database. It can also run reports on data in any table in a relational
database that do not conIorm to the dimensional model.
$uper Glue: $uperglue is used Ior loading metadata in a centralized place Irom several sources. Reports can be run
against this superglue to analyze meta data.

Note:This is not a complete tutorial on InIormatica. We will add more Tips and Guidelines on InIormatica in near
Iuture. !lease visit us soon to check back. To know more about InIormatica, contact its oIIicial website
www.inIormatica.com
Informatica Transformations
A transIormation is a repository object that generates, modiIies, or passes data. The Designer provides a set oI
transIormations that perIorm speciIic Iunctions. For example, an Aggregator transIormation perIorms calculations
on groups oI data.
TransIormations can be oI two types:
Active Transformation
An active transIormation can change the
number oI rows that pass through the
transIormation, change the transaction
boundary, can change the row type. For
example, Filter, Transaction Control and
Update $trategy are active transIormations.

The key point is to note that Designer does not allow you to connect multiple active transIormations or an active and
a passive transIormation to the same downstream transIormation or transIormation input group because the
Integration $ervice may not be able to concatenate the rows passed by active transIormations However, $equence
Generator transIormation($GT) is an exception to this rule. A $GT does not receive data. It generates unique
numeric values. As a result, the Integration $ervice does not encounter problems concatenating rows passed by a
$GT and an active transIormation.
Passive Transformation.
A passive transIormation does not change the number oI rows that pass through it, maintains the transaction
boundary, and maintains the row type.
The key point is to note that Designer allows you to connect multiple transIormations to the same downstream
transIormation or transIormation input group only iI all transIormations in the upstream branches are passive. The
transIormation that originates the branch can be active or passive.
TransIormations can be Connected or UnConnected to the data Ilow.
Connected Transformation
Connected transIormation is connected to
other transIormations or directly to target table
in the mapping.

UnConnected Transformation
An unconnected transIormation is not connected to other transIormations in the mapping. It is called within another
transIormation, and returns a value to that transIormation.
Informatica Transformations
Following are the list oI TransIormations available in InIormatica:
O Aggregator TransIormation
O Application $ource QualiIier TransIormation
O Custom TransIormation
O Data Masking TransIormation
O Expression TransIormation
O External !rocedure TransIormation
O Filter TransIormation
O HTT! TransIormation
O Input TransIormation
O ava TransIormation
O oiner TransIormation
O Lookup TransIormation
O Normalizer TransIormation
O Output TransIormation
O Rank TransIormation
O Reusable TransIormation
O Router TransIormation
O $equence Generator TransIormation
O $orter TransIormation
O $ource QualiIier TransIormation
O $QL TransIormation
O $tored !rocedure TransIormation
O Transaction Control Transaction
O Union TransIormation
O Unstructured Data TransIormation
O Update $trategy TransIormation
O ML Generator TransIormation
O ML !arser TransIormation
O ML $ource QualiIier TransIormation
O Advanced External !rocedure TransIormation
O External TransIormation

In the Iollowing pages, we will explain all the above InIormatica TransIormations and their signiIicances in the ETL
process in detail.
Informatica Mapping Designer
Q. How to execute PL/$QL script from Informatica mapping?
A. $tored !rocedure ($!) transIormation can be used to execute !L/$QL $cripts. In $! TransIormation !L/$QL
procedure name can be speciIied. Whenever the session is executed, the session will call the pl/sql procedure.
Q. How can you define a transformation? What are different types of transformations available in
Informatica?
A. A transIormation is a repository object that generates, modiIies, or passes data. The Designer provides a set oI
transIormations that perIorm speciIic Iunctions. For example, an Aggregator transIormation perIorms calculations
on groups oI data. Below are the various transIormations available in InIormatica:
O Aggregator
O Application $ource QualiIier
O Custom
O Expression
O External !rocedure
O Filter
O Input
O oiner
O Lookup
O Normalizer
O Output
O Rank
O Router
O $equence Generator
O $orter
O $ource QualiIier
O $tored !rocedure
O Transaction Control
O Union
O Update $trategy
O ML Generator
O ML !arser
O ML $ource QualiIier
Q. What is a source qualifier? What is meant by Query Override?
A. $ource QualiIier represents the rows that the !owerCenter $erver reads Irom a relational or Ilat Iile source when
it runs a session. When a relational or a Ilat Iile source deIinition is added to a mapping, it is connected to a $ource
QualiIier transIormation.
!owerCenter $erver generates a query Ior each $ource QualiIier TransIormation whenever it runs the session. The
deIault query is $ELET statement containing all the source columns. $ource QualiIier has capability to override this
deIault query by changing the deIault settings oI the transIormation properties. The list oI selected ports or the order
they appear in the deIault query should not be changed in overridden query.
Q. What is aggregator transformation?
A. The Aggregator transIormation allows perIorming aggregate calculations, such as averages and sums. Unlike
Expression TransIormation, the Aggregator transIormation can only be used to perIorm calculations on groups. The
Expression transIormation permits calculations on a row-by-row basis only.
Aggregator TransIormation contains group by ports that indicate how to group the data. While grouping the data, the
aggregator transIormation outputs the last row oI each group unless otherwise speciIied in the transIormation
properties.
Various group by Iunctions available in InIormatica are : AVG, COUNT, FIR$T, LA$T, MA, MEDIAN, MIN,
!ERCENTILE, $TDDEV, $UM, VARIANCE.
Q. What is Incremental Aggregation?
A. Whenever a session is created Ior a mapping Aggregate TransIormation, the session option Ior Incremental
Aggregation can be enabled. When !owerCenter perIorms incremental aggregation, it passes new source data
through the mapping and uses historical cache data to perIorm new aggregation calculations incrementally.
Q. How Union Transformation is used?
A. The union transIormation is a multiple input group transIormation that can be used to merge data Irom various
sources (or pipelines). This transIormation works just like UNION ALL statement in $QL, that is used to combine
result set oI two $ELECT statements.
Q. Can two flat files be joined with 1oiner Transformation?
A. Yes, joiner transIormation can be used to join data Irom two Ilat Iile sources.
Q. What is a look up transformation?
A. This transIormation is used to lookup data in a Ilat Iile or a relational table, view or synonym. It compares lookup
transIormation ports (input ports) to the source column values based on the lookup condition. Later returned values
can be passed to other transIormations.
Q. Can a lookup be done on Flat Files?
A. Yes.
Q. What is the difference between a connected look up and unconnected look up?
A. Connected lookup takes input values directly Irom other transIormations in the pipleline.
Unconnected lookup doesn`t take inputs directly Irom any other transIormation, but it can be used in any
transIormation (like expression) and can be invoked as a Iunction using :LK! expression. $o, an unconnected
lookup can be called multiple times in a mapping.
Q. What is a mapplet?
A. A mapplet is a reusable object that is created using mapplet designer. The mapplet contains set oI transIormations
and it allows us to reuse that transIormation logic in multiple mappings.
Q. What does reusable transformation mean?
A. Reusable transIormations can be used multiple times in a mapping. The reusable transIormation is stored as a
metadata separate Irom any other mapping that uses the transIormation. Whenever any changes to a reusable
transIormation are made, all the mappings where the transIormation is used will be invalidated.
Q. What is update strategy and what are the options for update strategy?
A. InIormatica processes the source data row-by-row. By deIault every row is marked to be inserted in the target
table. II the row has to be updated/inserted based on some logic Update $trategy transIormation is used. The
condition can be speciIied in Update $trategy to mark the processed row Ior update or insert.
Following options are available Ior update strategy :
O DDIN$ERT : II this is used the Update $trategy Ilags the row Ior insertion. Equivalent numeric value oI
DDIN$ERT is .
O DDU!DATE : II this is used the Update $trategy Ilags the row Ior update. Equivalent numeric value oI
DDU!DATE is 1.
O DDDELETE : II this is used the Update $trategy Ilags the row Ior deletion. Equivalent numeric value oI
DDDELETE is 2.
O DDREECT : II this is used the Update $trategy Ilags the row Ior rejection. Equivalent numeric value oI
DDREECT is 3.

Informatica Repository / Repository Manager
Q. What type of repositories can be created using Informatica Repository Manager?
A. InIormatica !owerCenter includeds Iollowing type oI repositories :
O $tandalone Repository : A repository that Iunctions individually and this is unrelated to any other
repositories.
O Global Repository : This is a centralized repository in a domain. This repository can contain shared objects
across the repositories in a domain. The objects are shared through global shortcuts.
O Local Repository : Local repository is within a domain and it`s not a global repository. Local repository can
connect to a global repository using global shortcuts and can use objects in it`s shared Iolders.
O Versioned Repository : This can either be local or global repository but it allows version control Ior the
repository. A versioned repository can store multiple copies, or versions oI an object. This Ieatures allows
to eIIiciently develop, test and deploy metadata in the production environment.
Q. What is a code page?
A. A code page contains encoding to speciIy characters in a set oI one or more languages. The code page is selected
based on source oI the data. For example iI source contains apanese text then the code page should be selected to
support apanese text.
When a code page is chosen, the program or application Ior which the code page is set, reIers to a speciIic set oI data
that describes the characters the application recognizes. This inIluences the way that application stores, receives, and
sends character data.
Q. Which all databases PowerCenter $erver on Windows can connect to?
A. !owerCenter $erver on Windows can connect to Iollowing databases:
O IBM DB2
O InIormix
O MicrosoIt Access
O MicrosoIt Excel
O MicrosoIt $QL $erver
O Oracle
O $ybase
O Teradata
Q. Which all databases PowerCenter $erver on UNIX can connect to?
A. !owerCenter $erver on UNI can connect to Iollowing databases:
O IBM DB2
O InIormix
O Oracle
O $ybase
O Teradata