You will find this new redbook here:

http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg247987.html?Open

Ernie

Check out this new YouTube channel…it’s first entry is a recording I put together to illustrate how to publish a DataStage or QualityStage Job as a Service…

http://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVFAoFT_zaVF_JWHGz-8d5w?feature=guide

My colleagues in product management and marketing are managing the channel and encouraging myself and others to put together all kinds of videos….demos of new and exciting features, or recordings that illustrate “how to” do something. I hope it is a resource that we all find useful going forward.

Ernie

This is an excellent video that is worth eight minutes of your time. It highlights the functionality of Business Glossary and Metadata Workbench and how they work together along with MetaDex to provide a strong solution in support of your governance objectives. Enjoy!

Ernie

The recording is specifically at: http://compactbi.eu/solutions/metadex

Just a quick note. I had the pleasure today of finally getting around to installing Actional Diagonostics. This is the latest release of what used to be called “SOAPScope”…it’s been awhile since I’ve had a need for it…but it was perfect, still providing all the great things that it did in its earlier implementations.

This is something I’ve been meaning to do for a long time, but haven’t had the chance. Mindreef was acquired by Progress Software several years ago, and what was originally “SOAPScope” has been rebranded. I don’t have any specifics as to the other Actional offerings that are connected, but I can say that the experience was excellent. The download and install went very smoothly, and I was invoking a service within minutes. The screens appear to be the same, although they have probably included new functionality that I have yet to explore.

If you need an easy to use testing tool for your services, put this one on your list. There are many of them out there….all good tools….. I happen to have always liked this one because it offers a good compromise — it will appeal to users like myself who are comfortable with xml and http protocols, yet also be easily adopted by users who don’t want to be exposed to xml and simply want an easy-to-use GUI. Especially nice in Actional Diagnostics is the ability to perform load testing, where you can easily create multiple threads (thus simulating multiple users) invoking your service in concurrent fashion.

Bravo to the team who is still supporting this.

You can find the download details at http://web.progress.com/en/actional/

Ernie

My esteemed colleagues on the xml development team have published a great article on the new XML Stage in 8.5….enjoy!

devWorks article on the New XML Stage!

Ernie

Just thought I’d throw in a quick review of the important (imho) links at the Advanced tab…..some of these factoids are buried in my other posts, but I needed to have a cheat-sheet for myself and others. Here is is:

Automated Services. This option brings up the dialog that runs the parsing or “stitching” process for the detailed metadata you have in your DataStage Jobs or Connector-imported rdbms views. It does a lot of stuff, takes time the first time you run it (if you have a ton of metadata), and should be scheduled during off-hours. After the first run against a particular project, it uses a change recognition mechanism to only pick up Jobs that have been updated. Note the “checked” DS Projects carefully. Only select those that are really critical, and once checked, don’t “uncheck” — as you will see from the warnings, this will “remove” all parsing history. Ultimately, this step is the one that reviews the Jobs, connects them via common information found in Stages, etc. See my other posts for how the connection of Jobs to each other is determined.

Stage Binding. When all else fails, you can connect two stages to each other. Use this when, for some reason, two Jobs won’t connect, or when the rules for connecting them can’t be met. I’ve needed this with some custom Stage or Operator implementations, and when I am using a technique that prevents automatic connection. Imagine having a Sequential Stage at the end of a Job that is writing out some xml content — and then I’m using the XML Stage in the next Job to read that content. There isn’t much in common between those Jobs, but I still want lineage to run directly thru them…

Data Item Binding. This provides a “manual” binding of particular Stages to Database Tables and Data Files (see other posts for what those are, how they are created, and how they are different from “DataStage Table Definitions”). Use this when you are unable to get Database Alias to work as you expect and you simply want to “bolt” a particular Database Table or Data File to a Stage in one of your Jobs to complete the lineage picture.

Data Source Identity. Use this when, for whatever reason, you want to link two identical tables for lineage purposes. Reasons? Two people might have imported the same metadata accidentally and you don’t want to delete it….or you might have the “design” information from an ERwin model and also have the “actual” table information from the rdbms catalog. There are many valid reasons. This link let’s you relate tables together. They must have the same name — the option here lets you relate the “Schemas” of two different databases. Identical tables within those schemas will become linked for lineage reporting — and therefore, also linked to whatever those individual tables connect to for lineage.

Database Alias. This option establishes the connection between an abstract string in a DataStage Stage (Server name, DSN name, etc., as defined by the relational stage) and the “Host/Database” combination that was actually imported. Database Tables in Metadata Workbench are typically “actual” tables — but in DataStage, like any well designed application, the “name” is a placeholder. This assigns the “placeholder” to the host and database. The schema.tablename used in the Stage will then be matched against the Host/Database set of Tables to create a lineage connection. The list presented at this option will be entirely empty until you perform Automated Services. Then it will be populated with each StageType and “server string” combination that it finds in your Jobs.

Hope this helps understand these options.

Ernie

The Blog-Health-o-Meter™ reads This blog is on fire!.

Crunchy numbers

The average container ship can carry about 4,500 containers. This blog was viewed about 21,000 times in 2010. If each view were a shipping container, your blog would have filled about 5 fully loaded ships.

In 2010, there were 11 new posts, growing the total archive of this blog to 52 posts. There were 8 pictures uploaded, taking up a total of 3mb.

The busiest day of the year was January 5th with 152 views. The most popular post that day was Incorporating Java classes into your DataStage Jobs.

Where did they come from?

The top referring sites in 2010 were dsxchange.com, it.toolbox.com, google.co.in, google.com, and en.wordpress.com.

Some visitors came searching, mostly for cobol etl, datastage web services, real time etl, datastage real time scenarios, and complex web services.

Attractions in 2010

These are the posts and pages that got the most views in 2010.

Incorporating Java classes into your DataStage Jobs March 2008
19 comments

Reading XML Content as a Source December 2007
10 comments

What is Real Time ETL anyway? November 2007
4 comments

Tips for using Web Services Pack with DataStage Part I: Getting Started November 2007
4 comments

Tips for Using Web Services Pack with DataStage: Part II – Invoking your first Service December 2007
8 comments

There are many ways to generate an xsd. Popular tools such as Altova XMLSpy support this capability, as do many others, including xml Max, whose link I have over on the link list to the right. A quick search on the web will invite you to try a lengthy list of possibilities. One that I’ve been very successful with is called “trang”.

http://www.thaiopensource.com/relaxng/trang.html

This little tool does more than just xsd generation, although that is the functionality that I have found most useful. I’ve tried it on Windows and on Linux. It is easy to use, well documented, has references from other bloggers across the web, and does the Job. It is command line based, and requires that you have a java run time locally installed. There may be more sophisticated tools out there, but this is sufficient for what I need to be productive with the new XML Stage.

Let me know if you find any others!

Ernie

Why?

One of the key reasons for including Shared Tables in lineage is for “Business Lineage”. This is a high level summary of lineage that doesn’t illustrate the lower level transformation details…just the “key” sources and targets (files, tables, reports, etc.) along the way. Another is to connect your Jobs to “external, non Information Server assets.” DataStage doesn’t write directly to a (for example) Cognos report….it writes to a table somewhere, and that table is then read by the business intelligence tool. The connection thru that table is critical for accurate data lineage reporting. Here is how Metadata Workbench makes the connection between a DataStage Job and a table…

Shared Tables have a four (4) part name: Host/Database/Schema/Tablename (see other entries in the table of contents on Shared Tables for more details on the names of Shared Tables or alternatives for importing them).

Relational Stages in DataStage typically use two (2) parts to identify a particular table. “Server” or “Database” or “DSN” name, and tablename. The Server/DSN/Database name is usually in a dedicated property within the Stage. The Tablename might be in a dedicated property, or it could also be embedded in User Defined SQL. Any of them might be hard coded or established via Job Parameters.

The first thing Metadata Workbench needs to do is to “map” the abstract “Server/Database/DSN” name to a particular “Host” and “Database” combination in the list of Shared Tables. Like any application, DataStage is just pointing to some abstract “string” when trying to find a database. An ODBC DSN, for example, “might” be the name of the database, but it could also just be “myODBCdatabase”, which really points to (in the ODBC definition) a DB2 table called HRMAIN. Even if we use the string HRMAIN in the “Server” property of the Stage, we still need a way to identify the particular host that we are considering for data lineage. This is done via the “Database Alias” link in the “Advanced” tab of the Metadata Workbench.

Go to the Advanced Tab after signing into the Workbench. Perform Automated Services for one of your projects (this could take a long time if it’s the first time you are doing it). When it finishes, click on “Database Alias”. Look carefully at the values there. These are the “strings” that are used in your various Jobs to identify databases. Pick the string that is appropriate for the Stage Type that you are working with and slide your cursor over to the right. The “Add” button will allow you to select the desired host/database combination that this abstract string should connect to. In the example noted above, I might assign the string (alias) myODBCdatabase to the host/database combination of QR2H004/HRMAIN. QR2H0004 with Database HRMAIN must be something I have already imported and is viewable in the left navigation pane of the Workbench, or in the Repository Management tab of the Information Server Web Console.

Save it (button on the lower right).

The next time you perform Automated Services, whenever that Stage type with that particular string (myODBCdatabase) is found, Metadata Workbench will use QR2H004/HRMAIN, combined with the fully qualified tablename* in the Stage, to match to a particular Shared Table that has been imported previously.

[* Note... if your tablename is NOT fully qualified, Metadata Workbench will, for most RDBMS Stage Types, pick up and use the value of the Username in order to identify your table]

Are you using Job Parameters? For Design based lineage, Metadata Workbench is smart, and will use the “default values” of those Job Parameters when finding alias “strings” and also when obtaining the fully qualified (schema.tablename) tablenames to use in the linking.

Are you using $PROJDEF? Run the ProcessEnvVars shell or bat file inside of /IBM/InformationServer/ASBNode/bin to obtain the project definitions for use in this algorithm.

Operational Metadata (a whole separate blog entry is needed to discuss OMD) is used to populate the Job Parameter values from “run time”…otherwise the same rules apply. If you are just starting, get to know lineage w/o worrying about OMD. That’s an advanced topic. Understand how database alias works by performing Automated Services, reviewing the Database Alias page in the Workbench, doing the assignment and running Automated Services again. Once it is complete, go to the actual table using the navigator frame at the left (open the Host tree and find the table) and right mouse and select “data lineage”. If it is a source, select “where does this go to”…..if it is a target, select “where did this come from”…… and validate your results.

Ernie

In the meantime, I’d like to congratulate my IBM teammates in engineering for this accomplishment! This new capability will change how we approach many transformation solutions!

You can find the new XML Transformation capability at fix pack central for application to your 8.5 installation.

Ernie