Repository Objects
PowerCenter stores every piece of metadata - source and target definitions, transformations, mapplets, mappings, sessions and workflows - in the repository, a set of relational tables managed by the Repository Service. This domain tests how you organise, version, lock, share and delete those objects.
Core rules
- The repository runs on Oracle, SQL Server, DB2 or Sybase. Designer, Workflow Manager, Workflow Monitor and Repository Manager all connect through a Repository Service; the Integration Service is what actually executes sessions.
- Folders provide organisation and security. Read, write and execute permissions are granted to users and groups at folder level, not per object.
- Versioning works through check-out, edit, check-in, plus version history, labels, compare and revert. Only one user can hold a check-out of a given object at a time, so concurrent work happens on different objects in the same folder.
- A shortcut is a pointer, not a copy. Local shortcuts point within the same repository; global shortcuts can point to objects in another folder or another repository, cannot be edited, and cannot carry their own permissions.
- PowerCenter refuses to delete an object that a mapping, session or workflow depends on. View Dependencies shows the chain in both directions.
Worked example
One cleansing lookup must be shared by three project folders. Keep the transformation in a shared folder and create a global shortcut in each consuming folder. If you copy instead, you get three objects with different IDs: a later bug fix in one copy silently leaves the other two wrong.
Traps
- Treating a shortcut as a copy and trying to edit it in the consuming folder.
- Assuming permissions can be set on a single transformation.
- Forgetting that deleting the original leaves any remaining shortcuts invalid.