Updated March 2, 2023
Introduction to Informatica
Informatica is a data processing tool that is widely used for ETL to extract transform and load processing. This is an industry-leading software in the field of data processing and data governance. Informatica is mostly used in the data warehouse, business intelligence and data integration between the business applications domain. Informatica has bust-in functionalities to connect with various source systems like databases, file systems or saas based applications using configurations, adapters and in-built connectors. Once the Source system is connected and the source data being captured, Informatica supports several out of the box transformation functionalities to transform the data, route, and process the configured and connected data to the target systems.
Informatica tool has the different steps of processes such as Extract, Transform and Load, which can be described as below:
- Extract: This is the first step in the process of the ETL process in the Informatica tool, which performs the process of obtaining data sets from the configured data source. This will then be loaded into the data warehouse. This process can also be called Capture.
- Transform: The second step in the process of ETL is Transform which will be done from one format to another format which will be supported by the structure of the data warehouse that will be stored into.
- Load: This is the third step in the ETL process, which will perform the operations of storing the data into Database by creating indexes in the data warehouse structure format after applying all the required transformations.
The different features of what is Informatica are as below:
- It allows the safe exchange of data in Business to Business and complete end to end visibility.
- It extracts data from different databases with different data types such as Structured, Unstructured and Semi-Structured Data. It transforms it into the required form and stores into the target databases for the customer requirements.
- It has the feature of parallel processing which is defined as the process of computing the execution of multiple processes simultaneously.
- It provides the reusability of data, re-running the data and recovery of data.
- It gives accurate deliverables and provides automation of deployments.
- It provides high security to the data stored.
- It provides recovery in the case of data disaster moments and customized access permissions.
- It has a centralized cloud server that provides high security with easy accessibility and tracking data facility.
- It provides high visibility in case of presentations for the visual data.
- It provides easy data maintenance and data monitoring.
Why do we need Informatica?
Informatica continues to the view wherever there is a data system accessible, and at the backend, you will require to perform specific data operations. It could also be such as picking up of data, altering the data, etc. established on a particular collection of rules or easy storing of bulk data of one system to another.
Informatica offers a vibrant assortment of features like operations at row level on data, data integration from multiple structured, semi-structured or unstructured systems, and data operation scheduling. It additionally consists of the characteristic of metadata, so the data regarding the operations of process and data are also protected.
Why is it used?
The conventional application for Informatica is:
- The company uses it to transfer from the current legacy system, such as the mainframe to the latest database system. Consequently, the transfer of its existent data into the system could be carried out.
- Companies establishing their warehouses of data will need ETL to transfer the data to the warehouse from the Production system.
- The assimilation of information from several different systems, such as numerous databases and system based on files could be completed utilizing Informatica.
- It could be utilized as a tool for cleansing data.
It is beneficial more than it provides a broad collection of product versions. Hence, consumers could choose a particular edition based on requisite. Informatica is consistently emphasized as a product of the integration of data product leader in Gartner Magic Quadrant’s listing.
Examples of Informatica
Their different applications in the area of Data Integration in the case of Informatica tool and below are the examples:
Example: The different steps in the process of ETL Informatica are as below in every case:
- Create a Source Definition.
- Create a Target Definition.
- Design transformation rules.
- Create all the mappings.
- Create a session for each mapping.
- Create a data connection.
- Create workflow.
- Start the process of a workflow.
The above process will always follow almost every ETL process, which is a kind of generalized theme.
The different applications of Informatica ETL tool are:
- It helps large organizations in the industry to store the data into many kinds of physical repositories such as data warehouses.
- It used for reporting, analysis and pictorial representation of large data for easier presentation.
- It has Data governance, data warehousing, data migration, data replication, and data synchronization applications.
- It has Integrated Competency Centers and Matter Data Management facilities.
- It acts as a Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) feature in terms of data exchange features.
- It provides great services in the area of Business Intelligence applications.
- ETL has a vast number of applications in Data Warehouse, where it transforms the data into different kinds of formats to support the existing data warehouse design structures or data storage structures.
- It provides integration of different heterogeneous systems such as multiple databases including file-based systems as well.
- It can also be used as a cleansing tool in case of cleaning the data.
- It also provides the migration of data from different technological or hardware streams.
Real-time application of Informatica
For a long time, companies have backed their process with an IT system host, particularly about compartmentalizing or the departmental requirements as the situation of the market and company procedures evolve into more complicated. However, the systems could not operate any longer in siloes. The organization’s success rate depends mostly on its capability to communicate evenly and in a convenient manner. The on-time organizations ensure uniform, convenient communication by choosing IT solutions and business and high-grade methods that constantly provide crucial business procedures to reach certain, reliable, accessible data regarding clients, partners, and products. This permits the enterprises to respond actively, stabler, and more affordable to emerging consumer demands, varying market circumstances and evolving competitive risks.
There is three significant utilization of the Informatica Power Centre. They also comprise Informatica PowerCenter Server, Informatica Power Center Client Tools, and Informatica PowerCenter Repository. Its consumer tools are created to assist the developer of Informatica in handling the following.
- Mapping and Runtime properties
- Manage Repository
- Monitor Session Executions
- Report Metadata
Advantages and Disadvantages of Informatica
Below are the advantages and disadvantages of Informatica are mentioned below:
Advantages
Below are the advantages:
- Effective GUI interfaces for Session monitoring, Job Scheduling, ETL Design, Debugging, Administration, etc.
- Queued Message
- Third-party application data
- Mainframe and file-based data
- XML and unstructured data
- Accessibility to a wide variety of data sources of the company
- Relational data
- Could acclimate and merge with provided data handling utility through the vendor.
- Load stabilization and parallel processing
- The web-based sole point of authority for an application broad enterprise assuring a great quality of protection with diminished administration expense
- Grid choice gives an affordable answer to suffice the high demand processing with linear scalability and high accessibility.
Disadvantages
When you are browsing several webpages to locate the drawbacks of Informatics, you might not find any as there are very few drawbacks. This section comprises information that is never more shown on any other article. Below you might find a few disadvantages:
- Workflow Monitor lack of sorting
- In the workflow monitor, there is no choice to separate out folders that are required or needed.
- In the repository manager, it not possible to move an object from one folder to another.
- Further, you cannot import XML export files.
- Also, it includes Mappings and workflows development is also not possible.
How will this technology help you in career growth?
This technology will assist you in your career growth you can anticipate to get selected as a beginner as a Developer of Informatica ETL and then work arduous to get promoted to a senior or lead developer position.
Subsequent seven to ten years of experience, you can advance to Informatica Admin or Architect’s position. Additionally, the other BI and Data Warehouse abilities could also provide you with an added benefit and help you become a BI or ETL Architect or Data Architect.
Conclusion
As there are different and multiples areas of applications in the Informatica ETL tool, the average utilization of ETL tools itself contains Informatica as the major one. This clearly indicates that there is greater utilization of Informatica tool in ETL, which has more than hundreds of tools available in the market currently. There are huge numbers of tools, including third-party tools and data warehouse applications with different functionalities and options to handle datasets in the Informatica tool. There are multiple data source features to transform or map after loading the data into the Informatica tool. The Informatica tool has extensive applications in the area of Data Analysis and Data handling, which provides greater benefits like Data Security and reducing data redundancy in the shortest execution time.
Informatica is accessible for every platform which is popularly used. It provides cloud-based services so that with minimum structure, an industry can utilize this tool. Informatica provides real-time Big data edition, Business to business data integration (B2B), data integration, Master Data Management, Web services integration, and connectors for Salesforce and social media.
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