Informatica v9 shifts and how to manage them: Source to Target

Introduction

I've recently made the shift from Informatica Data Quality / Data Explorer version 8.x to Informatica v9.  In the process I have discovered quite a few shifts in how certain tasks are performed.  Notice I called them shifts.  I did so because after learning them, I didn't feel as though there were fundamental changes.

A prime example and the focus of this post is the source-to-target process.  This process is so fundamental to ETL and data quality that it is often the starting point for all development.  As such I have chosen it as my starting point in mapping out the shifts in v9.

Shifting from the start ...

In IDQ v8.x there was a source component that you added to the plan and defined either with custom SQL or by selecting the required data attributes.  In v9 you'll have a hard time finding that component.  I know I did.  That's because a shift has been made by Informatica away from source/target components and toward physical / logical data objects.  For simplicity purposes we'll use physical data objects in our example.  However a logical data object is a construct that merits mention here and I'll follow up with in a later posting.

Logically speaking

Briefly, a logical data object is a generic data object that is not customized to one particular data environment but rather is constructed to represent a typical instance of metadata.  An example is a logical data object that models addresses.  This data is fairly consistent in most environments, so it is advantageous to an ETL/DQ developer to build a generic object that represents the typical metadata associated with an address.  Once this object is built it can be defined as reusable and dropped into any mapping that requires address data.

In the physical world

Physical data objects are different than logical data objects in that they more directly represent the data environment as it exists in reality.  Physical data objects can be defined from an existing data source, such as a flat file or data store.  Once the physical data object is created it can be used as a read or write object.  Defining a physical data object as a read object is analogous to using the source component.

To create a read physical data object follow the steps defined below:

1. Right-click on the Physical Data Object entry in the Data Explorer pane on the left-hand side of the Informatica Developer utility


2. Select Create Physical Data Object from menu options provided


3. Select either the flat file or data store source of the source data


4. Be sure to double check the data types and precision of the attributes created from the source


5. In the properties section of the data object specify run time properties like out file name and directory

Once the physical data object is created, drag-and-drop the object into a mapping and select the Read option from the dialog that appears.  Once this step is complete, you've made the shift to using data object instead of components to define sources in Informatica Data Quality v9!

I'll cover write objects next month and move on to logical data objects shortly after, so stay tuned!

Please feel free to submit comments and questions and I will respond as quickly as possible ...