Informatica Cloud Tutorial
Last updated on Jun 12, 2024
What is Informatica Cloud?
Informatica is an American software development company founded in 1993 and headquartered in Redwood City, California. Informatica is also known as Informatica power centre. It uses the extraction, transformation and loading (ETL) tool, which is widely used in building an enterprise data warehouse.
Informatica launched its Informatica integrated cloud services (IICS) in 2017. The main goal is to accelerate data that drive digital transformation in businesses. Informatica power centre's data integration connects and retrieves data from different sources and processes them. The PowerCenter server accomplishes tasks on a workflow that workflow managers create, and the workflow monitor in the power centre monitors the workflows. Informatica's IICS has a massive demand for data integration and management platforms which work similarly to Software as a Service (SaaS). Informatica has helped more than 9000 customers. Many clients like Allianz, Fannie Mae, ING, and Samsung use Informatica's power career centre as their data integration system.
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Difference between Informatica and Informatica Cloud?
Informatica Cloud provides almost all the abilities that Informatica PowerCenter offers. Additionally, Informatica Cloud provides Cloud Designer.
- It provides more advanced data integration capabilities than the PowerCenter Designer
- We do not have to connect all the ports manually as we do in PowerCenter
- We can also create reusable mappings using parameterized values
Informatica Cloud Architecture
Informatica architecture is a type of Service-oriented Architecture (SOA). Service-oriented architecture is a group service where one can communicate with each other, and it simplifies data transfer during this communication.Informatica ETL tool has the below services and components, such as:
- Informatica domain: it is an administrative unit which contains nodes and services. These are further divided into folders and subfolders.
- Repository service: The clients and the PowerCenter repositories are connected by Repository services. It is a multi-threaded process. It integrates the metadata and provides access to other services also.
- Integration service: it integrates the movement of data from targets to sources.
- Reporting services: these handle metadata and allow other services to access the same.
- Repository manager: manages objects in the repository.
- A workflow manager is needed to create workflows and tasks and execute them.
- Mapping designer: it helps create metadata of mappings and store them in the IICS repository.
- Source and Target: The source and target of metadata include data type, precision, scale, and other information about the source and target objects stored in the IICS repository.
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Informatica PowerCenter installation
The latest version of Informatica PowerCenter is Informatica 10.4 has released on December 2nd, 2019.
Prerequisites
We must install a database like Oracle, Microsoft SQL Server, or DB2. Informatica uses this for the metadata repository.
- A minimum of 35GB free disk space
- 4GB of RAM is needed
- Adobe Flash plug-in is required
- It requires x86 chip Set
Downloading the Software
To download Informatica PowerCenter, go to https://edelivery.oracle.com and register for a free account (if you do not already have one). Sign in to your account and accept the terms and conditions. Select 'All Categories' from the left dorp-down. Give 'Informatica PowerCenter' in the search box and click on 'Search'. 'Informatica PowerCenter and PowerCenter Adapters' will be shown. Click on the software link, select your operating system, and click on 'Continue'. Choose the version that you need and click on 'Download'. A set of zip files will have downloaded to your local machine.
Extract all the zip files and sub zip files into a single folder where you desire to set up the installation. You will get two folders - one for the client and the other for the server.
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Server Installation
Open the server folder and run the installer. The installation wizard will open. Click on 'Install Informatica'. It will verify and show the list of prerequisites, click on 'Next'. It will then ask you to provide the license key. The license key file will be available in your installation folder where the zip files have extracted. It will also give the installation path by default, and you can change this too. Click on 'Next' and then click on 'Install'.
Once the installation his completed, it will ask for the Domain. Select the option 'Create a domain' and click on 'Next'. You will get Windows alert to allow access. Click on 'Allow access'. Next, we need to set up the database. Give the database type, user id, user password, and other details. We will have an option to see if the connection has established or not. Click on 'Test Connection'. If the connection is successful, click on 'Next'. It will then prompt for the encryption key. Give a secure keyword and click on 'Next'. Click on 'Ok'.
The next screen will be for the domain node configuration. Give all the details like Domain name, node hostname, node name, domain username, domain password and click on 'Next'. Make sure that you note all these details somewhere for future purposes. Click on 'Next' for the next screen as well. On successful installation, you will get the administrator home page link.
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Client Installation
Open to the client folder in your local system where the extracted file has located. Run the installer. The installation wizard will be opened, select 'Install Informatica' and click on 'Next'. In the next screen, select all the clients and click on 'Next'. The default server installation directory has shown. You will have an option to change this too. Click on 'Next'. The next step is for configuring the transformation studio. Select 'Install data transformation studio and a standalone copy of Eclipse' and click on 'Next'. It will show a summary of the installation. Click on 'Install'. Once the client has successfully installed, you will get the post-installation summary. Click on 'Done'.
Components of Informatica Cloud
Components are resources which assist in mapping and tasks; there are many components in the Informatica cloud.
API collections
An API collection gives the following mappings schemas
Request schema used to map incoming fields in transformation
Response schema is used to map response fields from the Rest API
Fixed-width file formats
one can create and save multiple fixed-width file formats that specify the formatting details for fixed-width flat files. It can be used as a source or target in mappings and mapping tasks.
Business services
A business service is a web service which includes configured operations.
Hierarchical schemas
A hierarchical schema is considered an asset which is based on a schema file or sample JSON file, XML sample file or XML schema that is imported into Data Integration.
File listeners
A file listener listens to a particular folder and the file patterns. Some events trigger a notification in the below assets.
- Task flows
- File ingestion tasks
- B2B gateway partners
Intelligent structure models
Intelligent structure creates a model which articulates the expected output data. An intelligent structure model is used in mappings to analyse structured, semi-structured or unstructured data. Users can create multiple formats by using
- JSON files
- Avro files
- Parquet files
- XML FILES
- ORC files
- Microsoft Excel files etc
User-defined functions
using the Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services transformation language, one can create user-defined functions. User-defined functions are reusable functions that you can use in expressions.
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Advantages of Informatica Cloud
Following are the advantages of Informatica Cloud,
- We don't have to worry about managing the server locally for it as we don't have to set up infrastructure on-premise
- It allows companies to monitor data across instances of the cloud integration services centrally
- The cloud administration hub enables monitoring of all the jobs
- It helps in improving performance
- Informatica Cloud audit logs provide visibility into all the jobs and users
- It gives published APIs that can integrate with third-party tools
- It also offers extensive connectors for cloud and on-prem sources
- Offers greater document control
- Provides speed and agility
- Scaling up the server is easy
Connectivity
Informatica offers a wide range of intelligent, high-performing, in-built cloud connectors.
The connection between data endpoints, including databases, data warehouses, applications, APIs, and big data repositories, is made easy.
IMG
Connectors provided by Informatica Cloud
Many pre-installed connectors are available in Informatica the cloud, and in addition to them, one can create new connections for any connector installed in Informatica, the intelligent cloud service. One needs connectors in creating connections. Connections are provided to access features like data in cloud and on-premise applications, flat files,database and platforms.
OData connector:OData connector is known as Open Data Protocol (OData) which is a standard version of OASIS with best practices to build and consume RESTful APIs. With OData, one can customise their needs and develop RESTful APIs.
Web service consumer connector:
Web service applications that support SOAP API are connected to consumers by a web service consumer connector. Web service consumer connector is used in web services for transforming data.
REST V2 Connector:
REST V2 Connector is used to interact with web service applications that are built on REST architecture. REST V2 Connector can also be used in other areas like Source transformation, Target transformation, or midstream in a Web Services transformation. REST V2 Connector is used to midstream a mapping to pass one or many requests to a web service application and process the response data.
JSON Target Connector:
With the help of a JSON template, the JSON target connector converts source data into JSON format. In synchronisation tasks, JSON Target Connectors objects as targets.
Access to Informatica Cloud
A new user can get 30days of free trial access to the Informatica cloud. In Informatica's official website, in the top right corner, we can see a free trial; by clicking on it providing necessary details, one can get free trial access for 30 days.Creating a mapping and configuring in Informatica Cloud
To create a mapping in Informatica, one needs to follow the steps :
Step1: open designer in IICS then,
Click New and then in the New Asset dialogue box,
then click mapping.
step2 :
Click Create. The Mapping Designer appears with a new mapping dialogue box displaying the mapping canvas.
Step3:
Click on the Properties panel and enter m_Accounts_by_State to give a name.
Step4:
To save mapping in a specific location, browse to the folder you want and then map to save it, or it will be saved in the default location.
Conclusion
Informatica's cloud service is an all-in-one tool widely used. Many companies rely on this as its diversity in applications. It allows users to take full advantage and the ability to integrate services. One can check and monitor the tasks carried out or finished. Connecting is very easy with its high performing and intelligent inbuilt connectors.
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What is Informatica?
Informatica has played a cardinal role in data integration over the years. Informatica is an American software development company that provides products for data integration. Informatica’s Informatica PowerCenter is most commonly used for performing ETL operations, such as data quality, data masking, data replication, data virtualization, and master data management services. Informatica works on a service-oriented architecture and promotes services and resources on various computers. It provides transformations that may be connected or unconnected to the data flow, or transformations classified on the basis of the number of rows (Active transformation and Passive transformation)
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Why should you learn informatica?
Informatica is commonly utilized worldwide in organizations that want to remain on top of their results. With more than 30% of the world's information already stored in existing systems like Mainframe, there is a tremendous opportunity for a useful tool like Informatica when it comes to data integration. Along with that, Informatica is your key to the world of big data. There are therefore organizations that give top-notch wages to professionals who are well-versed in this top ETL tool.
Prerequisites of learning Informatica
To learn Informatica, it is necessary to have good knowledge of PL/ SQL (Structured Query Language) to access and edit databases.
Features supported by Informatica
- CI/CD & REST initiatives: Uses REST APIs to deploy, update, and query objects and to compare mappings that are developed in a CI/CD (Continuous Integration/Continuous Deployment) pipeline.
- CLAIRE® recommendations and insights: CLAIRE Artificial Intelligence provides best practice recommendations for mappings when designing. It also displays insights about similarities between mappings.
- Debugging enhancements: Collects aggregated cluster logs for mapping in the Monitoring tool or by using an infacmd ms command.
- Blockchain support: Connect to a blockchain to use blockchain sources and targets in mappings that run on the Spark engine, communicating with the REST web services that expose the blockchain to trigger the transactions according to the set business rules.
- Data Processor on Spark: Processes unstructured and semi-structured file formats using the Data Processor transformation on the Spark engine.
- Profiling on Spark: Run profiles and choose sampling options on the Spark engine. You can perform data domain discovery and run scorecards on the Spark engine.
- Hierarchical Data Processing enhancements: Processes complex data types such as array, struct, and map, in mappings, run on the Spark engine.
- Midstream hierarchical data parsing: Complex functions to parse up to 5MB of data midstream in a mapping on the Spark engine. Parse hierarchical JSON and XML data in a midstream string port using intelligent structure models and complex functions.
- Data preview: Preview data for relational sources, and data provisioning after you complete data discovery.
- Intelligent Structure Discovery improvements: Processes additional input types such as ORC, Avro, and Parquet, creates an intelligent structure model from a sample file at design time and arranges unidentified input data in the sample file as a structured JSON format in the output model.
Why is informatics so widely accepted by organizations?
Informatica is well known as the ETL tool and is opted by many organizations around the world in performing certain operations on the data systems in the backend. These operations include cleaning, modifying, the data based on some rules and regulations. And most notably it is known as the data integration tool.
Informatica is widely accepted due to the following reasons:
- Informatica allows you to work collaboratively smoothly with information business and technology.
- It is remarkably simple to use and there are a lot of automated processes available.
- You can implement Informatica for the supervision of operations and governance
- Your data analysis and software can be fed with data in real-time
- Advanced data transformations can be done while moving from source to destination
- It also provides master data management to connect important data to a common destination.
Why is data integration technology used?
Nowadays every company processes a huge data set. They come from a variety of sources and need to be processed in order to provide insightful information on how to make business decisions. However, quite often, such data have the following challenges:
- For the large organizations there will be bulk amounts of data. Here the data can be any format, thereby making available in different databases and in unstructured formats.
- This unstructured data in multiple databases needed to be combined, collated, and news to work seamlessly.
- Between the database, organizations implement the unique interfaces for the databases, any change in the particular database, then the interfaces needs to be updated.
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Here the data integration technology came into existence to solve all those complicated challenges that arise in the organizations. With the help of this technology, data from different databases can be communicated very smoothly and reliably. However, data integration technology comes with differentarhcitecyure to perform the operations on the data. Informatica uses ETL architecture to perform data integration.
So we need to now learn what ETL is and how Informatica performs ETL to solve the business problems.
What is ETL?
ETL is a type of data integration that incorporates an architecture that extracts, transforms, and then loads data into a target database or file. It's the cornerstone of a data warehouse.
The ETL system helps in performing the following actions. They are:
- Retrieve data from different sources
- Transforms and cleans the data
- Indexes of data
- Summary of data
- Loads data to the warehouse
- Tracks changes to the source data required for the warehouse
- Keys to Restructure
- Keeps the metadata in place
- Refresh the warehouse with updated data
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You have learned what ETL is and what the ETL mechanism is, we are now in a better position to understand why Informatica is the best approach in such situations. We can also explain what the usual real-life situation is where Informatica will come in handy.
What is the use of Informatica ETL tools?
Informatica PowerCenter is a premium data integration solution currently available. The explanation it offers the best option for large companies is that it is:
- Database neutral and can therefore interact with any database
- The most effective data transformation tool. Converts data from one program to another format
Now we will learn about how informatica performs ETL.
Top 60 frequently asked Informatica interview questions & answers for freshers & experienced professionals
How Does Informatica Performs ETL?
ETL: Extract
- PowerCenter can read data, row by row, from a table (or a group of similar tables) in a database, or from a file
- This database or file shall be referred to as the source
- The source structure is found in the source description entity.
ETL: Transform
- Informatica PowerCenter converts rows to the format that the second (target) method would be able to use.
- The logic of this conversion is described in transformation objects.
ETL: Load
- Informatica PowerCenter writes data, row by row, to a table (or group of associated tables) in a database, or to a file
- This database or file shall be referred to as the goal
- The configuration of the target is included in the target description object.
Now we will learn about the real-time applications of the information.
Applications of informatica:
The real-time applications of Informatica are:
- Changing from a legacy system like a mainframe to a modern database system requires data to be transferred from the old system to the new system.
- If a company wishes to set up its own data warehouse, an ETL tool will be required to transfer the data from output to the new data warehouse.
- Informatica can also be used as a data cleaning tool.
- Informatica also provides incorporation of online resources, business data, etc.
Now you have gained the basic concepts of Informatica and ETL.
We will now be going to learn about the Informatica architecture in depth.
Let's dig deeply now and grasp Informatica's Informatica Tutorial blog, its design and use case.
Informatica PowerCenter is the flagship product of Informatica and is often used interchangeably. Just to summarise, Informatica Powercenter is a single centralised enterprise data integration platform that enables businesses and government agencies of all sizes to access, discover and integrate data from virtually any business system, in any format, and distribute data across the enterprise at any speed. It is an ETL (Extract, Transform and Load) method with its key benefit over other ETLs.
- It is stable and can be used in Windows and UNIX-based systems.
- It is high-performance and very easy to build, maintain and manage.
Informatica PowerCenter Architecture:
Informatica’s PowerCenter uses a Service-Oriented-Architecture (SOA) consisting of the following components:
- Repository Service – it is a separate process performing functions like retrieval, insertion, and updating of the metadata in the repository databases.
- Integration Service – the integration service is responsible for the movement of transformed data from sources into the mapping targets.
- Reporting Service – enables the generation of reports.
- Nodes – A service role node runs applications and a compute role node performs computations.
- Informatica Designer – an interface used to build and manage PowerCenter mapping objects like source, target, and mapplets.
- Workflow Manager – executes tasks like emails, sessions, and shell commands. It contains a task developer, worklet designer, and workflow designer to manage and develop workflows.
- Workflow Monitor – the Workflow Monitor displays workflows that have run at least once. Workflows can be run, stopped, resumed, and aborted from the workflow monitor. It comprises the Navigator window, Output window, Time window, Gantt Chart view, and Task view.
- Repository Manager – allows navigation through multiple folders and repositories to manage user permissions, perform folder functions and view metadata.
For more information on the Informatica architecture, click on the Informatica Certification Training below.
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Informatica Architecture and its components:
In order to understand Informatica in real time, we should have an in-depth understanding of Informatica Architecture and other Informatica components. So you'll be able to understand the following at the end of this Informatica Tutorial blog:
- What is informatica architecture?
- Flow of data in informatica
- Informatica domains and nodes
- Informatica services and service manager
Client Components of Informatica PowerCenter:
The client components of informatica powercenter are:
- Powercenter repository manager
- Informatica Powercenter Designer
- Informatica Powercenter Workflow manager
- Informatica workflow designer:
- Informatica Powercenter Workflow Monitor:
- Informatica Administration Console
Server Components of Informatica PowerCenter:
The components of the PowerCenter server provide the following services: Informatica Architecture Tutorial
- Repository service: The repository service operates the repository. Retrieves, inserts, and updates metadata in repository database tables.
- Integration service: integration systems run sessions and workflows.
- SAP BW service: The SAP BW service scans for RFC requests from SAP BW and initiates workflows to retrieve or load data from SAP BW.
- Web services hub: The web services hub accepts requests from web service clients and shows PowerCenter workflows as services.
For more information on the Informatica architecture, client and server components, please click on the Informatica Architecture Tutorial here.
Conclusion:
In this tutorial i had clearly explained the concepts in depth of how Informatica helps in data integration, client and server side components,etc Moreover, informatica is a data integration platform based on the architecture of the ETL. It offers data integration tools and services for various companies, industries and government agencies, including telecommunications, health care, financial, and insurance services.
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About Author
Ishan is an IT graduate who has always been passionate about writing and storytelling. He is a tech-savvy and literary fanatic since his college days. Proficient in Data Science, Cloud Computing, and DevOps he is looking forward to spreading his words to the maximum audience to make them feel the adrenaline he feels when he pens down about the technological advancements. Apart from being tech-savvy and writing technical blogs, he is an entertainment writer, a blogger, and a traveler.
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