Ab Initio is popular software that offers data processing applications and enterprise application integration. It provides a single platform for data analysis, complex events, batch processing, data manipulation, quantitative, and qualitative data processing. In this post, our experts have put together the top 30 Ab Initio interview questions that help you through your interview process. Go through the below Ab Initio interview questions and answers to enhance your skill.
Ans: The following are the components of Ab Initio architecture.
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Ans: Co>Operating System operates on the top of the operating system and works as a base for all Ab Initio processes. It can run on operating systems like Windows, Linux, Solaris, AIX, HP-UX, and z/OS. It provides Ab Initio extensions through which ETL processes can be controlled. It manages metadata by interacting with EME, manages, and runs Ab Initio graphs.
Ans: Co>Operating System is installed on the operating system. Enterprise Meta>Environment (EME) is nothing but a repository for storing and managing metadata. Graphical Development Environment (GDE) is the graphical application for designing and running Ab Initio graphs. Users can access the EME metadata through the GDE web browser or Co>Operating system command line.
Ans: The dependency analysis is a process through which the EME analyzes the project for the dependencies within and between the graphs. It examines the entire project and tracks how data is being transformed and transferred from component to component and field by field. The steps involved in dependency analysis are translation and analysis.
Ans: The Ab Initio EME is logically segregated into data integration portion and user interface to access metadata information.
Ans: Overflow errors are the errors raised when dealing with processing bulky sets of data. While processing data, bulky calculations might not fit the memory allocated for them. And when a character of more than 8-bits is stored, an overflow error is raised.
Ans: EME can be connected to the Ab Initio server in several ways. The following are the ways to connect to EME.
Ans: Below are the file extensions used in Ab Initio.
Ans: A layout defines which component should run where. Ab Initio has two kinds of layouts.
Ans: Go to component properties, navigate to the parameter tab page, and double click on the transform parameter. The transform editor page will open. Click on the edit menu and select the 'Add Default Rules' option from the drop-down. You can choose from Match names and Wildcard options.
Ans: The local lookup function will be used before the lookup function call when the lookup file is a multifile and partitioned/sorted on a particular key. It will be local to a partition, depending on the key. The data records in the lookup file can be loaded into memory. This way, the transform function retrieves records faster than retrieving from disk.
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Ans: A lookup file represents one or more serial files, also known as Flat files. It is a physical file where lookup data is stored, which is small enough to be held in memory. Lookup is a component of the Ab Initio graph where data resides along with a key parameter. The data can be retrieved using this key parameter.
Ans: The .dbc file provides the below information to connect to a database.
Ans: Calling the .ksh file of the graph at the end script runs the graph infinitely. If the graph name is xyz.mp, then the end script of the graph should make a call to xyz.ksh.
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Ans: The Sort Component in Ab Initio is used for reordering data. It contains two parameters.
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Ans: Ab Initio has the following partition components.
Ans: The system generated unique sequential number is called a surrogate key. It acts as a primary key.
Ans: A sandbox is like a directory that contains a collection of Ab Initio graphs and related files. It is local to any user and is a replica of the Project in the EME. It will be helpful for version control, migration, and navigation.
Ans: Limit and ramp are used to set the reject tolerance of a graph. Limit is the number of rejects and ramp is rate of rejection. The formula for rejects tolerance is,
limit + (ramp*no_of_records_processed)
Ans: We have a lot of ways through which we can handle dynamically changing DML. Some of the methods are,
Ans: Here are some of the air commands in Ab Initio.
Ans: The output can be of the following formats.
Ans: A rollup component is used to group the records based on certain field values. It is a multi-stage transform function which contains functions like initialize, rollup and finalize.
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Ans: If any mentioned conditions are not met, the force_error it forces an error. It will be useful when you want to stop the execution of a graph if it doesn't meet the set condition. It will send the records to the reject port and error message to the error port.
Ans: We can improve the performance of a graph through the following methods.
Ans: The commonly used components in an Ab Initio graph are,
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Major companies like American Express, Citi Bank, JP Morgan Chase, Time Warner Cable, Home Depot, Premier, etc., use Ab Initio for their data processing and integration needs. The customers include 20% of Computer Software, 10% of Information Technology and Services, 9% of Higher Education, 9% of Education Management, etc. It has a market share of 5.12%. The Ab Initio developer and admin job posts are very high in demand. So, prepare well on the basics of Ab Initio, and you will have a high chance of cracking the interview.
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