Introduction to Informix Warehouse Feature
The Informix Warehouse Feature simplifies the design and deployment of
an Informix warehouse. It allows customers to more easily enable
business applications on Informix databases, supplying a
state-of-the-art Extract-Load-Transform (ELT) tool in an easy-to-use
GUI/Eclipse environment. This platform provides the foundation you
need to cost effectively deploy and build next-generation analytic
solutions using the IBM Informix Dynamic Server.
Using Informix for a data warehouse is an ideal solution for Informix
users who want to build end-to-end business intelligence (BI) and
reporting solutions using data from various sources, including IDS.
Users can more effectively leverage Informix for BI using Informix
Warehouse capabilities to create and populate a data warehouse
repository, and then utilize front-end analysis and reporting tools,
like IBM Cognos®, to provide BI dashboards and other types of
analytic applications and reports on top of the new warehouse
repository. Informix users can deploy an end-to-end warehouse
solution, simplifying operational complexity and reducing costs by
using a single database server product for both operational and
warehouse data.
Informix Warehouse has a component-based architecture with client and
server pieces. The following software components are provided in
Informix Warehouse:
- Informix Warehouse client:
- Informix Warehouse Design Studio
- Informix Warehouse server:
- WebSphere® Application Server
- Informix Warehouse Administration Console
Informix Warehouse
Client
Informix Warehouse Design Studio is an Eclipse-based common design
environment for defining the source and target databases involved in
your DW project, creating and reverse engineering physical data models
of your databases, and building SQL-based data flows and control flows
to quickly and easily build in-database data movements and
transformations into your warehouse.
Design Studio is fully integrated with technology pieces from
InfoSphere Data Architect® (IDA) for the graphical environment
that allows data modeling of your databases (from
scratch—empty template, from templates, or using reverse
engineering). Design Studio is also fully integrated with what is
called the SQL Warehousing (SQW) Tool, for the graphical environment
and SQL-code generation of data and control flows (which are sequences
of ELT jobs). Therefore, this tutorial only refers to Design Studio as
the single Client component in the Informix Warehouse Feature.
Informix Warehouse
Server
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WebSphere Application Server is included to specifically support
the Warehouse Administration Console and SQW run-time services in
charge of scheduling, executing, and monitoring the SQL-based ELT
jobs (control flows) defined and packaged using Design Studio.
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Informix Warehouse Administration Console is a Web-based application
for administering database and system resources related to your
warehouse, as well as deploying, scheduling, and monitoring the
control flows previously created in Design Studio through processes
called the SQL Warehousing (SQW) services. In order to support these
SQW run-time services, Informix Warehouse Console comes with WebSphere
Application Server, but you can run the Administration Console on any
other Java-based application server. The Administration Console allows
you to:
- Manage common resources, such as database connections and
machine resources
- Schedule the execution of control flows (sequences of ELT data
flows)
- Monitor the execution status
Informix Warehouse Architecture
Typically, you can arrange these Informix Warehouse Feature components
along with the source and target database nodes in a three-group
architecture like the one illustrated in
Figure 1. Figure 1 illustrates the interaction
between the different nodes in the platform. Notice that the Informix
Warehouse client component relates with both the existing data sources
(stored in the supported DBMS —IDS included— or in
external files) and the new or existing data target (our
datawarehouse, on IDS) for the purpose of designing and testing the
ELT jobs. Whenever these jobs are ready to be deployed as approved and
automated processes in the warehouse, the Informix Warehouse client
component interacts with the Informix Warehouse server component to
deploy these ELT jobs as packages or applications. The Informix
Warehouse server component takes these packaged ELT jobs and allows
you to schedule them for automatic execution on the target IDS data
warehouse, and to monitor the status of these jobs execution as well.
This architecture diagram also provides a basis for planning your
installation across multiple computers, and illustrates the
integration points that will be needed between the source and target
data nodes and the new Informix Warehouse components (client and
server).
Figure 1.
Architecture overview of Informix Warehouse Feature with source
and target database nodes
Now, focusing only on the new software, you can install the Informix
Warehouse client and server components and the IDS for your warehouse
repository in different or common machines, depending on whether you
look for a multi-tier architecture or whether the operating systems
you run on the computers support the different software groups'
requisites. For example, you could install the data warehouse server
(IDS) and the Informix Warehouse server components on the same
computer or on two different computers. Consult the system
requirements for the client and server components of the Informix
Warehouse when planning your architecture.
Figure 2 illustrates the different architecture
layouts for this solution:
Figure 2. Logical
groups of Informix Warehouse components and IDS data warehouse on
different computers
The next section of this tutorial reviews some of the key concepts in
the context of a data warehousing solution and the role that the
Informix Warehouse Feature plays to help in the implementation of such
solutions.
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