Rep_12355 the Object Has Been Modified Since the Time It Was Read

Informatica Powercenter weaknesses

Things that make an Informatica developer's life harder and sometimes makes them express joy.

Looking in the internet, we can find a lot of articles on why Informatica is the best etl tool but in that location'south very little data on its weaknesses. Even so Informatica Powercenter is a leading ETL tool on the market, all the same it'due south far from being perfect. This article covers things that are never revealed on a sales powerpoint presentation level.
This is a compilation of weaknesses of Informatica from the developer's perspective. Hopefully after reading someone will avoid getting into trouble.

Recently on a project I'm taking office in, we migrated and switched from Informatica 8.6.1 to 9.1.0. I was hoping most of the issues described below would be resolved only apparently it's not the case.

Sorting values

Sorting of dates and numbers based on string values. This generally looks like an amateur work. Few examples beneath:

Is really ii a bigger number than 14? :)

And here's how session are sorted in the ascending social club by engagement:

Lack of sorting in Workflow Monitor

For example yous can't order sessions past Proper name, Get-go Time, Completion Fourth dimension. In fact reading the execution logs is a hurting, especially when a workflow has many sessions. By default the sessions are sorted by execution social club (offset time), notwithstanding when workflow monitor is loaded when a workflow is notwithstanding running, the sessions become sorted in a random society.

Workflow monitor

• In Workflow monitor, why in that location's no selection to filter out folders that are not of one's involvement? I mean in big Powercenter installations in that location are tens of bachelor folders. Typically, a developer has access to perhaps three, maximum five. Only in the folder tree on the left-hand side there are all of them. It takes time for WF monitor to load and this consumes network traffic.
• It'south also a compassion that informatica doesn't provide a web-based workflow execution monitoring tool

Repository Manager

Moving object from 1 folder to another.

Allow'southward say we desire to re-create workflows, sessions, mappings and sources + targets from one binder to some other.
If we do information technology in repository managing director using copy & paste method or dragging and dropping the master workflow, all the objects volition exist copied. But... the trouble is that the source filter set on a session level gets reverted to the value from the mapping! And so if at that place's a source filter which limits the data in some way (a where SQL filter statement) it gets wiped out. So be careful when copying the sessions.
It doesn't happen when doing 'export to XML' and 'import from XML' in the repository manager though.
Wouldn't it be handy to be able to cull if the values should be reverted?

Importing XML export files

Importing XML repository export files - the folder selection window when you map folders from the XML file to the available folders. You can't type in the binder proper noun. So y'all need to click ... and it seems that Informatica reads all the bachelor folders and user'due south permissions. This is ok, however for me it sometimes takes like 15 minutes to load this window! Manner too long.

Mappings and workflows development

Lack of functionality compared to other tools or things that might be improved:

• Lack of a possibility to do loops within informatica workflows.
• Parameter files treatment. The concept of using a parameter file is ok, all the same it would be nice to be able to dynamically set parameters during runtime. Editing the parameter file for each run is rather painful. This would be very helpful especially for evolution/testing phase.
• It's not possible to run a single session within a worklet. Sometimes, again particularly for testing/development, it's handy to just run sessions one by 1. It's ok in workflows only why it's not possible within worklets ?
• When a workflow is running it's not possible to run another session (the error message says: Could non start execution of this workflow because the electric current run on this Informatica Server has non completed yet.). Enabling concurrent execution option on a workflow level sometimes helps, not ever though. Why it's not possible to put such a session in a queue?
• Lack of refresh selection in designer and wf managing director. If for case a source definition changes, a programmer needs to disconnect and connect again. In repository manager the refresh option is bachelor though.
• In workflow manager (tin can happen too in designer), when a mapping is modifed, later on coming back to the session, information technology tin't be validated, saved or refreshed due to the following error: REP_12355 The object ... has been modified since the fourth dimension it was read.
  The only option then is disconnect the repository and connect over again or restart the tool.
  Information technology would be and then much easier to be able to do a refresh or if this causes a conflict, to be able to choose what to exercise. Unfortunately the only option available is a restart, non dainty.

Back to the Informatica tutorial

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Source: https://etl-tools.info/informatica/informatica-weaknesses.html

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