Best Informatica administrator interview questions with answers – Part 1

1. What is a Repository and difference between repository database and repository serviceAnswer: Repository is metadata which means it has data about the data(objects). It stores the data regarding the Informatica objects .For eg: We have a folder say “Folder1” and 3 mappings has been created within it, so all the information regarding all objects in mapping and the folder will be stored in repository database in forms of tables.Repsoitory database is a database which contains all the metadata whereas the repository service is nothing but a service which runs on repository database and provides its services.OPB_Mapping: This table contains all the mapping names.

2. What is a code pageAnswer: Code page contains encoding to specify characters in a set of one or more languages.Eg: If you have Malaysian or Chinese character in your source data then you have to choose the appropriate code page for these characters else you’ll see square boxes once the data is loaded and processed as Informatica will not be able to understand those characters.

3. What is resilience time?Answer: Resilience time is the time defined in Informatica to wait before it lose the connectionon a network failure.Eg: If your resilience time is 180 sec and the network goes down so Informatica will wait for 180 sec and if network is established in between, the connection will be established. If the network is not up within 180 sec so the unsaved data will be lost and the client will be disconnected from the domain or repository

4. What is a node in Informatica?Answer: A node in Informatica is logical representation of a machine.

5. What is data movement mode in Informatica and difference between them?Answer: The data movement mode depends on whether Informatica server will process single byte or multi-byte character data set.There are two data movement modes in InformaticaI. Unicode: It allows two bytes for each character and uses the additional byte for each non ASCII character(Such as Malaysian characters)II. ASCII: It holds the data in a single byte.

6. How do you migrate data from one environment to another.Answer: There are generally three types of methodology used for data migration in InformaticaI. Copy Paste: Copy the folder or object in one repository and click on the destination repository and paste it(This can be done with pmrep command aslo)II. Import and Export: Exporting the object definition in xml file and then importing it to the destination folder or repositoryIII. Deployment group: While migrating objects in bulk the deployment group concept comes

into picture. Create a deployment group, add then folders and object to it and then migrate the deployment group.

7. What is an Integration service in Informatica?Answer: Integrations service is a application service in Informatica which run the workflows and session. It tells the Informatica server how to flow the data from source to target.Analogy: Integration service is like a carrier truck which carries the goods (data) from one place to other.

8. Pmrep and pmcmd commandAnswer: pmrep and pmcmd commands are the command line interface to perform Informatica related task. These command s are used most in form of scripts. Pmrep is used for all repository related tasks. Pmcmd is used for Informatica monitor and server related tasksEg: pmrep connect –r Repository_name –d Domain_name –n Username –x passwordThe above command connects to repository. Once connected you can create a folder in repository by below commandPmrep createfolder –f Foldername –o OwnerNameSome of the pmcmd commands:I. StartworkflowII. StopworkflowIII. WaitworkflowIV. RecoverworkflowV. ScheduleworkflowVI. StartaskVII. Stoptask

9. How to start a workflow using pmcmd commandAnswer: Pmcmd startworkflow [ folder][ taskInstancePath []][ paramfile][ localparamfile][ OSProfile] [-wait|-nowait][ runInsName] workflow

10. Creating a folder using pmrep commandAnswer: Pmrep createfolder –f Foldername –o OwnerName