Informatica Architecture

Informatica architecture is service-oriented architecture (SOA). A service-oriented architecture is defined as a group of services that communicate with each other. It means a simple data transfer during this communication, or it can be two or more services that coordinate the same activity.

The Informatica development depends upon the component-based development techniques. This technique uses the predefined components and functional units with their functionalities to get the result.

PowerCenter is based on the component-based development methodologies. To build a dataflow from the source to target, it used different components, and this process is called transformation.

Informatica ETL tool has the below services and components, such as:

1. Repository Service: It is responsible for maintaining Informatica metadata and provides access to the same to other services.
2. Integration Service: This service helps in the movement of data from sources to the targets.
3. Reporting Service: This service generates the reports.
4. Nodes: This is a computing platform to execute the above services.
5. Informatica Designer: It creates the mappings between source and target.
6. Workflow Manager: It is used to create workflows or other tasks and their execution.
7. Workflow Monitor: It is used to monitor the execution of workflows.
8. Repository Manager: It is used to manage the objects in the repository.

Informatica Domain

• The Informatica domain is the fundamental administrative unit.
• The Informatica domain consists of nodes and services. These nodes and services are categorized into folders or sub-folders based on administration requirements and design architecture.
• The Console web page of the Informatica administrator creates a domain that looks like a folder. Inside this folder, we can create a node with the services.
• In the Informatica domain, a node is a logical representation of the machine. All the services and processes run inside the domain in the Informatica. Multiple nodes can be present in a single domain. A gateway node receives the request from the clients and guides them to their respective services.
• The domain provides two types of services, such as:
  1. Service Manager: It manages domain operations such as logging, authentication, and authorization. It runs the application services on the nodes and leads users and groups.
  2. Application Services: It represents the server-specific services such as repository services, reporting services, and integration services. The application service can run on different nodes based on configuration.

Node

Node is a sensible study of a machine in a domain, and a domain has different hubs. To run the application administrations, we can design the hubs, such as mix administration.

PowerCenter Repository

The PowerCenter repository is a relational database such as SQL Server, Oracle, and Sybase. And these databases are maintained by the repository services. The database tables store the metadata.

Informatica client tools are the three types, such as:

1. Informatica designer
2. Informatica workflow manager
3. Informatica workflow monitor

Informatica provides repository services, and it is used to manage the repository. The repository services exclusively handle one request for one repository. But we can execute it on multiple nodes for better performance.

We can maintain the different versions of the same objects because of its version control mechanism. And also ignore multiple users that modifying the same object at the same time.

The objects created in the repository are having this three-state, such as:

• Valid: Valid objects have the correct syntax, according to the Informatica. And used for the execution of the workflow.
• Invalid: Invalid objects do not follow the standard or rules. These objects checked the syntax, and properties are valid or not during the saving of the object in Informatica.
• Impacted: The child objects of the affected object are invalid.

PowerCenter Repository Service

PowerCenter repository service is a different multi-strung process. It allows the customer to change the metadata in the store. It accepts demands from the considerate benefit for metadata to run work processes.
And the repository service maintains the associations from PowerCenter customers to the PowerCenter vault. It inserts the metadata inside the archive and keeps it refreshed. It is able to keep up consistency inside the archive metadata.

Domain configuration

In the Informatica ETL tool, the domain is the necessary fundamental administrative control. It is an apparent entity that provides other different services such as repository service, integration service, and various nodes.

The Informatica admin console is used for the domain configuration. And the console is launched with the help of the web browsers.

PowerCenter Client and Server Connectivity

PowerCenter client tools are installed on the client-side machines. These tools are the development tools such as workflow manager, PowerCenter designer, repository manager, and workflow monitor.

Informatica repository contains all the created mapping and objects in these client tools, which resides on the Informatica server. That's why client tools must have network connectivity with the server.

Also, PowerCenter client connects to the sources and targets to import the metadata and structure definitions. Thus, it also maintains the connectivity to the source or target systems.

• PowerCenter client uses the TCP/IP protocols for connectivity with the integration service and repository service.
• And PowerCenter client uses the ODBC drivers for the connectivity with the source or targets.

Repository Service

The repository service is a multithreading process. It maintains the connection between the PowerCenter clients and the PowerCenter repository.

The repository service can fetch, insert, and update the metadata inside the repository. And it also maintains the consistency inside the repository metadata.

Integration Service

The integration service is used as an execution engine in the Informatica. It helps in executing the tasks which are created in the Informatica. Integration service works in the following manner, such as:

• A user performs a workflow.
• The Informatica instructs the integration service to execute the workflow.
• Then the integration service reads workflow details from the repository.
• The integration service starts the execution of the tasks inside the workflow.
• After the execution, the task status is updated, for example, Succeeded, Failed, or Aborted.
• Then it grants the session log and workflow log.
• This service loads the data into the target systems.
• Integration service combines data from different sources.