Informatica PowerConnect SDK Features and Benefits

The intention of Informatica Software Development Kit (SDK) is to provide the ability to build connectors to new types of sources and targets for the PowerCenter platform. Sources and targets developed using the SDK can fully participate in the Extraction Transformation and Loading (ETL) process, just like the already supported sources and targets in PowerCenter. Since the SDK takes full advantage of the PowerCenter ETL engine, it is possible to build sources and targets that have different constraints such as large volumes, proprietary data formats, Real time requirements etc. Other benefits of the Informatica SDK include the ability to customize the PowerCenter Designer GUI for External Procedures (EP) and Advanced External Procedures (AEP). It can also be used to provide custom GUI in the Designer for Metadata Extensions. The Informatica SDK in comprised of a set of standard C++ based interface classes. The SDK is broken down into three components: Client Repository Server

The Client SDK allows the SDK developer to customize the Designer GUI. Using the SDK, custom menu items can be added to the Designer. The client SDK also provides the capability to add custom property pages to the property windows of various objects such as sources, targets, and transformations. The client SDK works as a plugin application for the Designer. Notifications are sent to the client plugin for various events such as validation, save operation etc. The client plugin can provide custom logic in the notification handlers. The Repository SDK provides C++ access to the metadata stored in the PowerCenter repository. Using the repository SDK you can access the PowerCenter sources and targets and the relationships, such as PK-FK relationships among the tables. You also have access to mappings, transformations and session metadata. The repository SDK is used in conjunction with client SDK and server SDK. The Server SDK has two components: Reader and Writer SDK. The Reader SDK is used to build the reader module that reads from the custom PowerConnect source. Similarly, the Writer SDK is used to build the writer module that writes to the custom PowerConnect target. A set of APIs is available to write to the session log, and they can be used to log any reader and writer activity information and statistics to the PowerCenter session log. The Informatica SDK is available on NT and various flavors of the UNIX platforms that PowerCenter supports.

Future versions of PowerCenter will provide backward compatibility for applications development using an older version of the PowerConnect SDK. The applications themselves may need to be recompiled and linked with the new libraries, however, code changes in general will be needed only to take advantage of the new features. A PowerCenter repository metadata registration process is provided to register the metadata that defines the properties and behavior of the custom PowerConnect source and target, and the reader and writer components that process them. For example, using the meta-metadata you can define if a reader or writer developed using the SDK, supports partitioning. The developer uses a predefined XML format to specify this meta-metadata. This method gives the developer a granular control over the characteristics of the PowerConnect source and target and allows the user to fully exploit the capabilities. Informatica uses the Informatica SDK internally to build its own PowerConnect adapters. This is because the Informatica SDK is robust and provides all the functions that are needed to build high performance and scalable PowerConnects for any type of source and targets. In fact this was the design goal of the Informatica SDK. Scalability features of PowerCenter such as partitioning are available via the SDK, which allows building PowerConnects that require processing large volumes of data as quickly as possible. Informatica is fully committed to enriching the capabilities of the SDK with any new features and functionalities of PowerCenter in the future releases.

The following table contains a list of descriptions and benefits of the Informatica SDK. SDK Feature PowerConnect Meta-Meta data registration Description XML based registration of PowerConnect related meta-metadata Benefit Provides a way to register meta-metadata that defines the properties and behavior of custom sources and targets. Object oriented programming language to develop high performance PowerConnects. C++ classes and methods to customize the client GUI for more functionality and better usability. C++ classes that provide access to source, target, transformation, mapping and session metadata. C++ classes to build

C++ Interface classes

A set of C++ classes

Client SDK

Client Plugin interface classes.

Repository SDK

C++ repository classes

Server SDK

C++ reader/writer classes

Session Log API

APIs to write to PowerCenter session logs

Parallel Processing

Parallel processing via PowerCenter partitions provides full scalability

Real time processing

Real time processing features

Single and multi-group source and target support

Support for different source and target formats

PowerCenter reader and writer modules. APIs that allow logging of PowerConnect reader and writer activity messages to the PowerCenter session logs. Reader and writer modules developed using the SDK allow thread-safe processing, and hence can be used in PowerCenter partitioned sessions. Real time data flushes controlled via SDK calls, which in-turn allows moving data in real time PowerConnect sources and targets can be flat (single group) or hierarchical (with multiple groups). Example of a hierarchical format is XML.