Informatica Corporation

PowerCenter
Version 8.0
New Features and Enhancements
December 2005

Copyright 1998-2005 Informatica Corporation

Contents
Informatica Distributed Services Architecture 2
Command Line Programs 2
Datatypes 3
Data Profiling 3
Documentation 3
Installation 4
Integration Service (PowerCenter Server) 4
Architecture 4
Partitioning 4
FTP 5
Recovery 5
Environment SQL 5
Globalization 5
Performance Improvements 5
Repository 6
Administration 6
Architecture 6
Meta Integration Model Bridge 6
Object Queries 6
Versioned Objects 7
Deployment 7
Security 7
Transformation Language 7
Transformations 7
XML 8
Usability 8
PowerCenter Data Analyzer (PowerAnalyzer) 8
PowerCenter Metadata Manager (SuperGlue) 8

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PowerCenter Connect for IBM MQSeries 9
PowerCenter Connect for SAP NetWeaver mySAP Option (PowerCenter Connect for SAP R/3) 9
PowerCenter Connect for SAP NetWeaver BW Option (PowerCenter Connect for SAP BW) 9
PowerCenter Repository Reports (PowerCenter Metadata Reporter) 10

Informatica Distributed Services Architecture

ƒ Domains and nodes. PowerCenter 8.0 allows you to scale services and share resources
across multiple machines. PowerCenter introduces a PowerCenter domain, the primary unit
of administration for the PowerCenter environment, and a PowerCenter node, the logical
representation of a machine in a domain.
ƒ Services. PowerCenter provides application and core services. Application services
represent PowerCenter server-based functionality such as the Repository Service,
Integration Service, and SAP BW Service. Core services support the domain and
application services. Core services include a Log Service, Licensing Service, and
Domain Service.
ƒ High availability. You can use the high availability option to eliminate single points of
failure in the PowerCenter environment and reduce service interruptions in the event of
failure. High availability provides resilience, failover, and recovery for services.
ƒ Administration. PowerCenter provides centralized administration through the
Administration Console. You perform all administration tasks for the domain and
services in the Administration Console. This includes administration of the Repository
Service.
ƒ Authentication Service. PowerCenter uses the Authentication Service to authenticate
users for the Administration Console and the repository. For repository authentication,
you can use LDAP or native authentication. To use LDAP authentication, you configure
authentication at the domain level and register the module with each repository you
want to use LDAP authentication.
ƒ Licensing Service. PowerCenter uses the Licensing Service to enable features, such as
PowerCenter options and connectivity. You assign each application service to a license
to enable the service.
ƒ Log Service. The Log Service is a core service of the PowerCenter domain. It captures
log events for all services within the domain. Log types include domain, services,
workflows, and sessions. You can view logs in the Administration Console and in the
Workflow Monitor.

Command Line Programs

ƒ infacmd. infacmd is a new command line program that allows you to administer
PowerCenter domains and services. You can perform tasks such as enabling and disabling
services and purging log events.

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 ƒ infasetup. infasetup is a new command line program that allows you to configure domains
and nodes. Use infasetup to define domains and nodes, join domains, and configure node
passwords, domain licenses, and domain service ports.
ƒ pmcmd. pmcmd includes new commands to support Integration Service functionality and
new syntax to connect to a domain.
ƒ pmrep. pmrep now includes former pmrepagent commands and new syntax to connect to a
domain.

Datatypes
ƒ Flat file definitions. You can configure flat file definitions to use the Integer or Double
datatype.

Data Profiling
ƒ Functional Dependencies Analysis function. You can use the Functional Dependencies
Analysis function to determine exact and approximate dependencies between columns in a
source.
ƒ Inter-Source Structure Analysis function. You can use the Inter-Source Structure
Inference function to determine primary key-foreign key relationships among multiple
sources.
ƒ Candidate key and redundancy column analysis. Data Profiling can return column sets
of up to seven columns for candidate key and redundancy analysis. Also, the column
precision to evaluate candidate keys and analyze redundancies is increased.
ƒ Domain Inference function. The Domain Inference function can infer the source datatype
and categories of inferred patterns. Data Profiling reports show results for the new types of
data in this function.
ƒ Column Lookup domain. You can use a flat file or relational source column as a domain.
ƒ Multiple join columns. You can specify up to six join conditions in the Referential
Integrity Analysis and Join Complexity Evaluation functions.
ƒ Reporting. Data Profiling provides reporting enhancements such as improved paging
capabilities and a consistent layout between custom profile reports and auto profile reports.
In reports for the column-level Business Rule Validation function, you can click the Drill
Down link on the Verbose Report Summary to view the source rows.

Documentation
PowerCenter documentation includes the following new books:
ƒ Administrator Guide. Provides information for administrators to manage the domain and
services.
ƒ Command Line Reference. Provides syntax and description for infacmd, infasetup,
pmcmd, and pmrep.
ƒ Performance Tuning Guide. Provides information about tuning the performance in
PowerCenter.

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 ƒ Upgrade Guide. Provides information about new and changed functionality in
PowerCenter, including tasks that you might need to perform after upgrading to a new
version.

Installation
ƒ Installation packaging. The PowerCenter installation DVD installs Informatica
Distributed Services and the PowerCenter Client. PowerCenter also includes a
documentation CD that you can use to install PowerCenter documentation.
ƒ PowerCenter Editions. Based on the license you have, you can install PowerCenter
Standard Edition or PowerCenter Advanced Edition.
ƒ Configuration. The installation program can create a domain, add a node to an existing
domain, and create a Repository Service and Integration Service. For PowerCenter Services,
Data Analyzer, and Metadata Manager, you can use an existing repository or create a new
repository. It also provides configuration options.
ƒ Upgrade. You can manually upgrade an existing PowerCenter Server or Repository Agent
to an Integration Service or Repository Service.

Integration Service (PowerCenter Server)

Architecture
ƒ Service-oriented architecture. The Integration Service replaces the PowerCenter Server.
If you have the high availability option, you can configure the Integration Service to fail
over to another node if the current node becomes unavailable.
ƒ Load Balancer. The Load Balancer dispatches tasks. If you run tasks on a grid, the Load
Balancer dispatches Session and Command tasks to nodes that can run the tasks.
ƒ Resources. PowerCenter requires resources to run tasks. Resources can include plug-ins,
connection objects, file directories, and shared libraries. You define resources for nodes and
tasks. The Load Balancer dispatches tasks to nodes where the resources are available.
ƒ Grid object. The server grid is updated to incorporate a grid object into the PowerCenter
domain. You create a grid object in the Administration Console, and you assign one or more
nodes to run on the grid.
ƒ Run workflow on a grid. You can configure a workflow to run on an Integration Service
associated with the grid. When you run a workflow on a grid, the Integration Service
distributes the workflow tasks to available nodes.
ƒ Run session on a grid. You can configure a session to run on a grid if the parent workflow
is associated with a grid. When you run a session on a grid, the Integration Service
distributes reader, writer, and transformation threads to available nodes.

Partitioning
ƒ Database partitioning. You can use the database partitioning partition type with Oracle
and DB2 sources.

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ƒ Dynamic partitioning. The Integration Service can determine the number of partitions at
run time based on the dynamic partitioning session property.

FTP
ƒ Partitioned FTP file targets. For partitioned target instances, the Integration Service writes
to a remote merge file. For merged targets, the Integration Service creates a local merge file
and transfers the merge file to the FTP host.
ƒ Indirect FTP file sources. You can use an indirect file list for a flat file source instance
located on a remote machine.

Recovery
ƒ Workflow recovery. If you have high availability, you can recover an interrupted
workflow in the Workflow Manager or Workflow Monitor. When you recover a workflow,
the Integration Service attempts to complete the original workflow run. The Integration
Service restores the last good state of the workflow and restarts or resumes the interrupted
tasks.
Session task recovery. You can configure the recovery strategy to recover an
interrupted session in a workflow. You can choose to resume, restart, or skip the
Session task. When you recover the workflow, the Integration Service uses the
recovery strategy to recover the session.
Command task recovery. You can configure the recovery strategy to restart or
skip the Command task when you recover a workflow.

Environment SQL
ƒ Transaction environment SQL. You can use transaction environment SQL to execute an
SQL statement at the beginning of each transaction. This is in addition to the current
connection environment SQL that executes each time the Integration Service connects to the
database.

Globalization
ƒ Unicode repository. PowerCenter now supports a Unicode repository. You can choose the
UTF-8 character set as the repository code page to store metadata from multiple languages.
ƒ Code page validation. With expanded support for Unicode, PowerCenter code page
validation rules are now less restrictive.

Performance Improvements
ƒ Pushdown optimization. The Integration Service can execute SQL against the source or
target database instead of processing the transformation logic within the Integration Service.

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 ƒ Partitioned flat file targets. The Integration Service can create an individual target file
for all partitions, a merge file for all partitioned flat file target instances, and a file list that
references the individual target files for all target partitions.
ƒ Append to flat file targets. The Integration Service can append data to existing flat file
target and reject files.
ƒ Flat file source and target commands. You can specify a command for any flat file
source or target instance in a session. You can use a command to generate source data and
you can use a command to process target data.
ƒ Data compression. Repository data is compressed during communication among the
Repository Service, Integration Service, and PowerCenter Client.

Repository
This section describes changes to the repository functionality.

Administration
ƒ Administration tool. You use the browser-based PowerCenter Administration Console to
perform administrative tasks that were formerly done in the Repository Server
Administration Console.

Architecture
ƒ Service-oriented architecture. In the Informatica distributed services architecture, each
Repository Service manages a single repository. A Repository Service process is an instance
of the Repository Service running on a particular node. If you have the high availability
option, you can configure the Repository Service to fail over to another node if the current
node becomes unavailable.

Meta Integration Model Bridge

ƒ Additional import/export functionality. You can use the Meta Integration Model Bridge
from Meta Integration Technology, Inc. to exchange data with the following business
intelligence and data modeling tools:
CA AllFusion ERwin Data Modeler 4.x
CA ERwin 3.x (ERX) and CA ERwin 3.5x (export only)
Embarcadero ER/Studio
Oracle Designer
Sybase PowerDesigner

Object Queries
ƒ Non-versioned repositories. You can create and run queries against repositories that are
not enabled for versioning.

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ƒ Label parameter. The following operators are added to the label parameter: Contains,
Does Not Contain, Starts With, Does Not Start With, Ends With, and Does Not End With.

Versioned Objects
ƒ Checking out and checking in objects. You can explicitly check out versioned
repository objects. You can view checked-in objects in the workspace.
ƒ Viewing older versions of objects. You can view older versions of objects in the
workspace.

Deployment
ƒ Assign owner and group to a folder. You can assign an owner and owner group when
you copy a folder or deployment group.
ƒ Generate a deployment control file. You can generate a deployment control file when
you copy a folder or deployment group with the Copy Wizard.

Security
ƒ Extended repository privileges. You can assign additional extended repository privileges
to manage repository objects. Privileges include Manage Connection, Manage Label, and
Manage Folder.

Transformation Language
ƒ User-defined functions. You can create user-defined functions in the Designer to use in
transformations and workflow tasks. You can include the functions in expressions or other
user-defined functions.
ƒ Custom Functions SDK. You can develop functions written in C Language and integrate
them using a set of API calls that come with PowerCenter. You can include the functions in
mapping and workflow expressions.
ƒ New functions. The transformation language has 23 new built-in functions such as
COMPRESS, DECOMPRESS, and REVERSE.

Transformations
ƒ Custom transformation. The Custom transformation has the following enhancements:
Procedures with thread-specific operations. You can include thread-specific
operations in Custom transformation procedures and configure the transformation
to process each partition using one thread.
Partitioning enhancements. You can partition a Custom transformation or any
transformation created from a Custom transformation locally or across a grid.

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 Java and C++ API. You can use Java and C++ to create the Custom
transformation procedures. You can use the new API to access data in block mode
and perform datatype conversions at the column level.
ƒ Java transformation. You can use the Java transformation to create, compile, and debug
Java code snippets that execute in-line Java code in the mapping. You can also use Java to
call expressions in a Java transformation.

XML
ƒ Filter data with query predicate. You can filter XML source data in a session by
including an XPath query predicate in an XML definition. You can use string, numeric, and
boolean XPath functions to filter source data.
ƒ Create a default namespace. You can use a default namespace to eliminate the
namespace prefix in an XML target.
ƒ Import part of an XML schema. You can import part of an XML schema when you
import an XML file that uses the schema, but only contains some of the schema
components.
ƒ Use anySimpleType. You can import an XML schema that contains anySimpleType
elements.

Usability
ƒ Propagate port description. In the Designer, you can edit a port description and
propagate the description to other transformations in the mapping.
ƒ Link ports in the workspace. In the Designer, you can link ports by dragging all ports
from one mapping object to another mapping object in the workspace.
ƒ Show background in iconic view. In the Designer and Workflow Manager, you can
enable background colors for objects in iconic view.

PowerCenter Data Analyzer (PowerAnalyzer)

ƒ PowerAnalyzer renamed. PowerAnalyzer is renamed PowerCenter Data Analyzer.

PowerCenter Metadata Manager (SuperGlue)

ƒ SuperGlue renamed. SuperGlue is renamed PowerCenter Metadata Manager.
ƒ 64-bit operating systems. Metadata Manager supports 64-bit operating systems.
ƒ XConnects. The PowerCenter XConnect extracts additional metadata from the
PowerCenter repository. PowerCenter XConnects now support parameterized connections,
and data lineage is displayed for these connections.
ƒ Data lineage diagrams. Data lineage diagrams display the following information:
If the container of the data structure or transformation box is different from the
actual parent, the actual parent name of the data structure or transformation
displays in the lineage diagram.

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 Stored procedures are displayed as object structures.
Public synonyms are displayed for all database tables across domains.
ƒ Metadata Manager Configuration Console. Metadata Manager Configuration Console
now works on the PowerCenter 8.0 platform. You can now register multiple source
repository instances under the corresponding repository type.

PowerCenter Connect for IBM MQSeries

ƒ Improved real-time performance. The Integration Service can now commit source
messages to the target at the end of a millisecond flush latency period. By default, the
integer n in the FlushLatency(n) function represents seconds. However, you can configure
an MQSeries session to change the value to milliseconds.

PowerCenter Connect for SAP NetWeaver mySAP Option

(PowerCenter Connect for SAP R/3)
ƒ PowerCenter Connect for SAP R/3 renamed. PowerCenter Connect for SAP R/3 is
renamed PowerCenter Connect for SAP NetWeaver mySAP Option.
ƒ Improved performance. The Integration Service creates caches in memory for sessions
for inbound IDoc mappings or DMI mappings. You can configure the total cache size and
cache directory.
ƒ Outbound IDoc syntax validation. You can configure an outbound IDoc session to check
for invalid IDocs and write them to a relational or flat file target.
ƒ Mandatory segments and groups in IDoc and DMI mappings. In the SAP/ALE IDoc
Prepare transformation, SAP/ALE IDoc Interpreter transformation, and SAP DMI Prepare
transformation, you can view mandatory segments and groups to help you understand which
segments the transformations require in the IDoc or DMI message.
ƒ Scheduling Business Content Integration. The listener workflow controls the
scheduling of the processing workflows. The listener workflow receives DataSource data
from SAP, loads the data to staging targets, and then starts the appropriate processing
workflow for the received data.

PowerCenter Connect for SAP NetWeaver BW Option

(PowerCenter Connect for SAP BW)
ƒ PowerCenter Connect for SAP BW renamed. PowerCenter Connect for SAP BW is
renamed PowerCenter Connect for SAP NetWeaver BW Option.
ƒ PowerCenter Integration Server for SAP BW (PCISBW) renamed. PowerCenter
Integration Server for SAP BW is renamed to SAP BW Service.
ƒ Loading by packet size. PowerCenter Connect for SAP NetWeaver BW Option loads BW
data as a packet based on the packet size value you set in the session.

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 ƒ Load balancing. To support load balancing, the SAP BW Service records the BW host
requesting data from PowerCenter. The Integration Service loads the data to the same
requesting host.
ƒ Process chains to load into SAP BW. You can create a BW Process chain to start a
PowerCenter workflow that loads data into SAP BW.
ƒ Improved logging. The SAP BW Service can capture messages from SAP BW when you
run a BW session. You can view these log events in the PowerCenter Administration
Console or in the SAP BW monitor.
ƒ Recovery. You can enable a BW session for recovery. If the session fails, you can restart it
in the Workflow Manager.

PowerCenter Repository Reports (PowerCenter Metadata

Reporter)
ƒ PowerCenter Metadata Reporter renamed. PowerCenter Metadata Reporter is renamed
PowerCenter Repository Reports.
ƒ Server Grid List report. The Server Grid List report is replaced with the following
reports:
Integration Service List. Displays a list of all Integration Services that run on the
grids and nodes configured in PowerCenter.
Repository Information. Displays a list of all Repository Services that run on
nodes configured in PowerCenter. It also provides information about whether a
node is a primary node or a backup node.
ƒ Metadata Extensions Usage report. The Metadata Extensions Usage report is replaced
with the following reports:
Metadata Extensions Usage (Mapping and Mapplet). Displays a list of all
reusable metadata extensions. The report is organized by repository and folder and
shows the number of mappings or mapplets that use each metadata extension.
Metadata Extensions Usage (Source, Target and Transformation). Displays a
list of all reusable metadata extensions. The report is organized by repository and
folder and shows the number of sources, targets, or transformations that use each
metadata extension.
Metadata Extensions Usage (Workflow, Worklet and Session). Displays a list of
all reusable metadata extensions. The report is organized by repository and folder and
shows the number of workflows, worklets, or sessions that use each metadata
extension.

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