Cisco Cisco Workload Automation 6.3 User Guide

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Introducing the Informatica Adapter 

This chapter covers these topics:

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Overview

With the CWA Adapter for Informatica, organizations can add complex scheduling functions to their Informatica solution 
and consolidate multiple schedulers into one centralized console. The enterprise adapter, in conjunction with CWA, can 
be used to define, launch and monitor Informatica workflows within an Informatica PowerCenter. The adapter enhances 
Informatica automation and integrates seamlessly in an enterprise scheduling environment. 

To use CWA’s Informatica adapter, you first define connections to your Informatica environments. You then create 
Informatica jobs similar to other Scheduler jobs, with the distinction that the 

 dialog 

provides an easy to use screen that allows for selection of folders, workflows and sessions, and processing options. You 
monitor job execution in real time from the 

 pane. 

For purposes of this document, Informatica and PowerCenter are used interchangeably. 

The CWA Adapter for Informatica integrates with PowerCenter using Informatica’s Load Manager SDK (a set of 
application programming interfaces/APIs that allows interaction with the PowerCenter Server for workflow 
management). Via this programming interface, the Informatica Adapter communicates with the Load Manager 
component of the PowerCenter to run and monitor workflows. To provide for user access to Repository data such as 
Folder, Workflow and Workflow Task definitions, the Informatica Adapter also requires a database connection to the 
PowerCenter Repository Database. Database connectivity is provided via Java Database Connectivity (JDBC) 
programming interface.

An Informatica job definition refers to workflows retrieved from the PowerCenter repository and provides for parameter 
value overrides that can refer to Scheduling variables. Based on defined scheduling criteria, the Informatica Adapter 
submits a PowerCenter workflow to be run directly by PowerCenter's Integration Service. Job execution is authenticated 
against PowerCenter through associations between CWA runtime users and PowerCenter namespaces, roles and users. 
Once a workflow has been submitted, the Adapter monitors the workflow and its tasks until completion. During 
execution, real-time workflow and task status details are visible from the 

 pane. When the job has 

completed, the Adapter returns its final status (used to control downstream jobs) as well as details associated with the 
run, to the 

 pane. Additionally, the Adapter lets users cancel, abort, recover or rerun workflows from CWA, 

a feature that provides significantly more control over the environment than afforded by other non-integrated scheduling 
solutions.