What is the relation between EME , GDE and Co-operating system ? ans.

EME is said as enterprise metdata env, GDE as graphical devlopment env and Cooperating sytem can be said as asbinitio server relation b/w this CO-OP, EME AND GDE is as fallows Co operating system is the Abinitio Server. this co-op is installed on perticular O.S platform that is called NATIVE O.S .comming to the EME, its i just as repository in informatica , its hold the metadata,trnsformations,db config files source and targets informations. comming to GDE its is end user envirinment where we can devlop the graphs(mapping just like in informatica) desinger uses the GDE and designs the graphs and save to the EME or Sand box it is at user side.where EME is ast server side. What is the use of aggregation when we have rollup as we know rollup component in abinitio is used to summirize group of data record. then where we will use aggregation ? ans: Aggregation and Rollup both can summerise the data but rollup is much more convenient to use. In order to understand how a particular summerisation being rollup is much more explanatory compared to aggregate. Rollup can do some other functionalities like input and output filtering of records. Aggregate and rollup perform same action, rollup display intermediat result in main memory, Aggregate does not support intermediat result what are kinds of layouts does ab initio supports Basically there are serial and parallel layouts supported by AbInitio. A graph can have both at the same time. The parallel one depends on the degree of data parallelism. If the multi-file system is 4-way parallel then a component in a graph can run 4 way parallel if the layout is defined such as it's same as the degree of parallelism. How can you run a graph infinitely? To run a graph infinitely, the end script in the graph should call the .ksh file of the graph. Thus if the name of the graph is abc.mp then in the end script of the graph there should be a call to abc.ksh. Like this the graph will run infinitely. How do you add default rules in transformer? Double click on the transform parameter of parameter tab page of component properties, it will open transform editor. In the transform editor click on the Edit menu and then select Add Default Rules from the dropdown. It will show two options - 1) Match Names 2) Wildcard. Do you know what a local lookup is? If your lookup file is a multifile and partioned/sorted on a particular key then local lookup function can be used ahead of lookup function call. This is local to a particular partition depending on the key. Lookup File consists of data records which can be held in main memory. This makes the

transform function to retrieve the records much faster than retirving from disk. It allows the transform component to process the data records of multiple files fastly. What is the difference between look-up file and look-up, with a relevant example? Generally Lookup file represents one or more serial files(Flat files). The amount of data is small enough to be held in the memory. This allows transform functions to retrive records much more quickly than it could retrive from Disk. A lookup is a component of abinitio graph where we can store data and retrieve it by using a key parameter. A lookup file is the physical file where the data for the lookup is stored. How many components in your most complicated graph? It depends the type of components you us. usually avoid using much complicated transform function in a graph. Explain what is lookup? Lookup is basically a specific dataset which is keyed. This can be used to mapping values as per the data present in a particular file (serial/multi file). The dataset can be static as well dynamic ( in case the lookup file is being generated in previous phase and used as lookup file in current phase). Sometimes, hash-joins can be replaced by using reformat and lookup if one of the input to the join contains less number of records with slim record length. AbInitio has built-in functions to retrieve values using the key for the lookup What is a ramp limit? The limit parameter contains an integer that represents a number of reject events The ramp parameter contains a real number that represents a rate of reject events in the number of records processed. no of bad records allowed = limit + no of records*ramp. ramp is basically the percentage value (from 0 to 1) This two together provides the threshold value of bad records. Have you worked with packages? Multistage transform components by default uses packages. However user can create his own set of functions in a transfer function and can include this in other transfer functions. Have you used rollup component? Describe how.

If the user wants to group the records on particular field values then rollup is best way to do that. Rollup is a multi-stage transform function and it contains the following mandatory functions. 1. initialise 2. rollup 3. finalise Also need to declare one temporary variable if you want to get counts of a particular group. For each of the group, first it does call the initialise function once, followed by rollup

function calls for each of the records in the group and finally calls the finalise function once at the end of last rollup call. How do you add default rules in transformer?

Add Default Rules Opens the Add Default Rules dialog. Select one of the following: Match Names Match names: generates a set of rules that copies input fields to output fields with the same name. Use Wildcard (.*) Rule Generates one rule that copies input fields to output fields with the same name. )If it is not already displayed, display the Transform Editor Grid. 2)Click the Business Rules tab if it is not already displayed. 3)Select Edit > Add Default Rules. In case of reformat if the destination field names are same or subset of the source fields then no need to write anything in the reformat xfr unless you dont want to use any real transform other than reducing the set of fields or split the flow into a number of flows to achive the functionality. What is the difference between partitioning with key and round robin?

Partition by Key or hash partition -> This is a partitioning technique which is used to partition data when the keys are diverse. If the key is present in large volume then there can large data skew. But this method is used more often for parallel data processing. Round robin partition is another partitioning technique to uniformly distribute the data on each of the destination data partitions. The skew is zero in this case when no of records is divisible by number of partitions. A real life example is how a pack of 52 cards is distributed among 4 players in a round-robin manner. How do you improve the performance of a graph?

There are many ways the performance of the graph can be improved. 1) Use a limited number of components in a particular phase 2) Use optimum value of max core values for sort and join components 3) Minimise the number of sort components 4) Minimise sorted join component and if possible replace them by in-memory join/hash join 5) Use only required fields in the sort, reformat, join components 6) Use phasing/flow buffers in case of merge, sorted joins 7) If the two inputs are huge then use sorted join, otherwise use hash join with proper driving port 8) For large dataset don't use broadcast as partitioner 9) Minimise the use of regular expression functions like re_index in the trasfer functions 10) Avoid repartitioning of data unnecessarily Try to run the graph as long as possible in MFS. For these input files should be partitioned and if possible output file should also be partitioned.

How do you truncate a table? From Abinitio run sql component using the DDL "trucate table By using the Truncate table component in Ab Initio Have you eveer encountered an error called "depth not equal"? When two components are linked together if their layout doesnot match then this problem can occur during the compilation of the graph. A solution to this problem would be to use a partitioning component in between if there was change in layout. What is the function you would use to transfer a string into a decimal?

In this case no specific function is required if the size of the string and decimal is same. Just use decimal cast with the size in the transform function and will suffice. For example, if the source field is defined as string(8) and the destination as decimal(8) then (say the field name is field1). out.field :: (decimal(8)) in.field If the destination field size is lesser than the input then use of string_substring function can be used likie the following. say destination field is decimal(5). out.field :: (decimal(5))string_lrtrim(string_substring(in.field,1,5)) /* string_lrtrim used to trim leading and trailing spaces */ What is a Graph in Ab Initio? The ETL process in AbInitio is represented by AbInitio graphs. Graphs are formed by components (from the standard components library or custom), flows (data streams) and parameters. What is Co>Operating System in Ab Initio? Co>Operating System is a program provided by AbInitio which operates on the top of the operating system and is a base for all AbInitio processes. It provides additional features known as air commands which can be installed on a variety of system environments such as Unix, HP-UX, Linux, IBM AIX and Windows systems. The AbInitio CoOperating System provides the following features:
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Manage and run AbInitio graphs and control the ETL processes Provides AbInitio extensions to the operating system ETL processes monitoring and debugging Metadata management and interaction with the EME

What is AbInitio GDE (Graphical Development Enviroment)?

GDE is a graphical application for developers which is used for designing and running AbInitio graphs. It also provides:
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The ETL process in AbInitio is represented by AbInitio graphs. Graphs are formed by components (from the standard components library or custom), flows (data streams) and parameters. A user-friendly frontend for designing Ab Initio ETL graphs Ability to run, debug Ab Initio jobs and trace execution logs GDE AbInitio graph compilation process results in generation of a UNIX shell script which may be executed on a machine without the GDE installed.

What is AbInitio EME? Enterprise Meta>Environment (EME) is an AbInitio repository and environment for storing and managing metadata. It provides capability to store both business and technical metadata. EME metadata can be accessed from the Ab Initio GDE, web browser or AbInitio CoOperating system command line (air commands). What is Conduct>It in AbInitio? Conduct>It is an environment for creating enterprise Ab Initio data integration systems. Its main role is to create AbInitio Plans which is a special type of graph constructed of another graphs and scripts. AbInitio provides both graphical and command-line interface to Conduct>IT. What is a data profiler inAbInitio? The Data Profiler is a graphical data analysis tool which runs on top of the Co>Operating system. It can be used to characterize data range, scope, distribution, variance, and quality. What kind of parallelisms supported by Ab Initio? Ab Initio implements parallelism in mainly 3 ways: Data parallelism data is divided among many partitions known as multi-files. During processing, each partition is processed in parallel. Component parallelism multiple components are run in parallel. Components execute simultaneously on different branches of a graph. Pipeline parallelism when a record is processed in one component and a previous record is being processed in another components. Operations like sorting and aggregation break pipeline parallelism. Explain what is Lookup?

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Lookup is basically a specific dataset which is keyed. This can be used to mapping values as per the data present in a particular file(serial/multi file). The dataset can be static or dynamic(in case the lookup file is being generated in previous phase and used as lookup file in current phase). Sometimes, hash-joins can be replaced by using reformat and lookup if one of the input to the join contains less number of records with slim record length. AbInitio has built-in functions to retrieve values using the key for the lookup.

What is the difference between lookup file and lookup?

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A lookup is a component of AbInitio graph where we can store data and retrieve it by using a key parameter. A lookup file is the physical file where the data for the lookup is stored.

What is a local lookup? If the lookup file is a multifile and partitioned/sorted on a particular key then local lookup function can be used ahead of lookup function call. This is local to a particular partition depending on the key. Lookup File consists of data records which can be held in main memory. This makes the transform function to retrieve the records much faster than retrieving from disk. It allows the transform component to process the data records of multiple files fast. Describes the foreign key columns in fact table and dimension Foreign keys of dimension tables are primary keys of entity Foreign keys of facts tables are primary keys of Dimension tables. table? tables.

What is Data Mining? Data Mining is the process of analyzing data from different perspectives and summarizing it into useful information. What is the difference between view and materialized view? A view takes the output of a query and makes it appear like a virtual table and it can be used in place of tables. A materialized view provides indirect access to table data by storing the results of a query in a separate schema object. What is ER Diagram? Entity Relationship Diagrams are a major data modelling tool and will help organize the data in your project into entities and define the relationships between the entities. This process has proved to enable the analyst to produce a good database structure so that the data can be stored and retrieved in a most efficient manner. An entity-relationship (ER) diagram is a specialized graphic that illustrates the interrelationships between entities in a database. A type of diagram used in data modeling for relational data bases. These diagrams show the structure of each table and the links between tables. What is ODS? ODS is abbreviation of Operational Data Store. A database structure that is a repository for

near real-time operational data rather than long term trend data. The ODS may further become the enterprise shared operational database, allowing operational systems that are being re-engineered to use the ODS as there operation databases. What is ETL? ETL is abbreviation of extract, transform, and load. ETL is software that enables businesses to consolidate their disparate data while moving it from place to place, and it doesnt really matter that that data is in different forms or formats. The data can come from any source.ETL is powerful enough to handle such data disparities. First, the extract function reads data from a specified source database and extracts a desired subset of data. Next, the transform function works with the acquired data using rules orlookup tables, or creating combinations with other data to convert it to the desired state. Finally, the load function is used to write the resulting data to a target database. What is VLDB? VLDB is abbreviation of Very Large DataBase. A one terabyte database would normally be considered to be a VLDB. Typically, these are decision support systems or transaction processing applications serving large numbers of users. Is OLTP database is design optimal for Data Warehouse? No. OLTP database tables are normalized and it will add additional time to queries to return results. Additionally OLTP database is smaller and it does not contain longer period (many years) data, which needs to be analyzed. A OLTP system is basically ER model and not Dimensional Model. If a complex query is executed on a OLTP system, it may cause a heavy overhead on the OLTP server that will affect the normal business processes. If de-normalized is improves data warehouse processes, why fact table is in normal form? Foreign keys of facts tables are primary keys of Dimension tables. It is clear that fact table contains columns which are primary key to other table that itself make normal form table. What are lookup tables? A lookup table is the table placed on the target table based upon the primary key of the target, it just updates the table by allowing only modified (new or updated) records based on thelookup condition. What are Aggregate tables? Aggregate table contains the summary of existing warehouse data which is grouped to certain levels of dimensions. It is always easy to retrieve data from aggregated tables than visiting original table which has million records. Aggregate tables reduces the load in the database server and increases the performance of the query and can retrieve the result quickly. What is real time data-warehousing? Data warehousing captures business activity data. Real-time data warehousing captures business activity data as it occurs. As soon as the business activity is complete and there is data about it, the completed activity data flows into the data warehouse and becomes available instantly.

What are conformed dimensions? Conformed dimensions mean the exact same thing with every possible fact table to which they are joined. They are common to the cubes. What is conformed fact? Conformed dimensions are the dimensions which can be used across multiple Data Marts in combination with multiple facts tables accordingly. How do you load the time dimension? Time dimensions are usually loaded by a program that loops through all possible dates that may appear in the data. 100 years may be represented in a time dimension, with one row per day. What is a level of Granularity of a fact table? Level of granularity means level of detail that you put into the fact table in a data warehouse. Level of granularity would mean what detail are you willing to put for each transactional fact. What are non-additive facts? Non-additive facts are facts that cannot be summed up for any of the dimensions present in the fact table. However they are not considered as useless. If there is changes in dimensions the same facts can be useful. What is factless facts table? A fact table which does not contain numeric fact columns it is called factless facts table.
air project import /Projects/ABC_COMPANY_NAME/APPLICATION_NAME/SANDBOX_NAME -basedir /ai/src/./././APPLICATION_NAME/SANDBOX_NAME -files mp/abc.mp air project import <sandbox path in eme> -basedir <sandbox path on our unix machine> -files <folder of file mp or dml or pset etc>/<Name of the file we want to checkin from this location>

By using command line prompt. We have AIR COMMANDS for Check In & Check Out Process Check In : air project import/project// - base dir /ai/src//users/dev//sand/ -files<<'EOF' Check In : air project export/project// - base dir /ai/src//users/dev//sand/ -files<<'EOF'