ToM Report Series on Data Warehouse – Write generic code to limit codebase and gain performance in Informatica PowerCenter

Ever changing business needs and requirements are forcing BI-projects to be more agile than ever before. The value of “seeing the data” can’t be emphasized enough in a BI-project which is why too rigid implementation processes and long delivery sprints should be avoided. Data Vault is one of the most flexible modelling techniques that is used today, much thanks to its abilities to cope and adapt with fast changing realities and increasing needs to extend existing data models.

When working with Data Vault or other ensemble modelling techniques the different building blocks; Hubs, Links and to some extent Satellites are well defined and all share a common structure that can be used to build generic code. With the use of generic code, the code base can be held to a minimum and hence the time to value can be shortened. One should be aware that one downside with generic code can be a greater complexity and reduced data load speed if you aren’t careful in the design and implementation.

This report will give the reader hands on design examples in Informatica PowerCenter, to be used for writing generic, agile code without losing performance in the data load. Because of its suitability Data Vault is chosen to exemplify the performance gain.