1)The architecture of Power Center 8 has changed a lot; PC8 is service-oriented for modularity scalability and flexibility.

2) The Repository Service and Integration Service (as replacement for Rep Server and Informatica Server) can be run on different computers in a network (so called nodes) even redundantly. 3) Management is centralized that means services can be started and stopped on nodes via a central web interface. 4) Client Tools access the repository via that centralized machine resources are distributed dynamically. 5) Running all services on one machine is still possible of course. 6) It has a support for unstructured data which includes spreadsheets email Microsoft Word files presentations and .PDF documents. It provides high availability seamless fail over eliminating single points of failure. 7) It has added performance improvements (To bump up systems performance Informatica has added "push down optimization" which moves data transformation processing to the native relational database I/O engine whenever its is most appropriate.) 8) Informatica has now added more tightly integrated data profiling cleansing and matching capabilities. 9) Informatica has added a new web based administrative console. 10) Ability to write a Custom Transformation in C++ or Java. 11) Midstream SQL transformation has been added in 8.1.1 not in 8.1. 12) Dynamic configuration of caches and partitioning 13) Java transformation is introduced . 14) User defined functions 15) Power Center 8 release has "Append to Target file"

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The new Version Informatica 8.1 has got some additional feature's like: 1) Mapping Generation Option 2) Push Down Optimisation 3) Data Cleanse and Match 4) Data Federation (EII) 5) Enterprise Grid 6) High Availability 7) Unstructured Data And there are some updations in 1) Data Profiling 2) Partitioning 3) Real-Time Loading

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Hi The main difference between informatica 7.1 and 8.1 are as follows; 1.1At Architecture level:In 7.x you will get two server components i.e Repository Server And Informatica Server but in 8.x Architeture enhanced to SOA(SERVICE ORIENTED ARCHITETURE) 2.At Domain Level: Here no concept of domain But in 8.x Concept of domain introduced which is a logical grouping of nodes services user with a common set of corre services say-log services authorization services. The domain is a primaryunit for management and administration of service in power center Users and Group information stored @repository level 3.Communication Protocol: All clients tools and integration services communicate with repository server over tcp/ip but in 8.x All client tools communicate with metadata reopsitory via repository services 4.Server Grid In 7.x load balancing by round robin assign workflow explicitly to pmserver but in 8.x Priority based and current load on informatica server used to load balance. 5.pushdown optimization: no concept of pushdown optimization in 7.x but in 8.x Executing mapping t/r login directly on database 6.version Control Version is in built in the suite and version control not available for user defined functions but in 8.x Enhanced versioned contol objects.Explicit checkout of objects possible from this version onwards. 8. new t/r added in 8.x say java t/r.

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Re: What is 'PowerCenter Pushdown Optimization Option' in INFORMATICA ? Answer # 1 Pushdown optimization is used to push the complex logic to the database level. This will reduce the complexity of the Powercenter mappings and increases the performance. Re: What is 'PowerCenter Pushdown Optimization Option' in INFORMATICA ? Answer# 2 Genrally, data base opertions are more faster than operations that are excuted under power center.

The main idea behind pushdown optmization is to push some of the transformation logic to either source side or target side data base, so that performance can be improved. Re: What is 'PowerCenter Pushdown Optimization Option' in INFORMATICA ? Answer # 3 IN GENERAL DATABASE OPERATONS ARE MORE FASTER THAT EXEXUTING IN THE POWERCENTER,SO WE CAN MOVE THE COMPLEX TRANSFORMATION LOGIC TO DATABASE FOR PERFORMNACE IMPROVE

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2)sql transformation is added 3)service oriented architecture 4)grid concept is additional feature 5) random file name can be genarated in target 6) command line programms: infacmd and infasetup new commands were added. 7) java transformation is added feature 8)concurrent cache creation and faster index building are additional feature in lookup transformation 9) caches or automatic u dont need to allocate at transformation level, 10) push down optimization techniques,some new java transformations,changes in parameter file and integration services rather than powercentre server java and sql transformation is included data quality is increased performance speed of loading the data mappings can be viewed through web applications Active Transformations Sourcequalifer Transformation Filter Transformation Joiner Transformation Router Transformation Sorter Transformation Rank Transformation Aggregator Transformation Update strategy Normalize Transformation SQL Transformation Java Transformation Union Transformation Transaction control Transformation

Passive Transformations Expression Transformation Sequence genitor Transformation Lookk up Transformation Stored procedure Transformation XML source qualifier Transformation