Speed or Leave DataStage


Faster Transforms. Simpler Security. Huge Savings.

Challenges

 

Even after consulting and tuning are employed, big data volumes (i.e., more than one million rows) can be slow to transform, particularly without an expensive hardware or version upgrade of DataStage.

 

Big data bottlenecks are large sorts, joins, aggregations, loads, and sometimes unloads. Parallelization or optimization in other layers or tools can be unwieldy, if not expensive, and may adversely affect performance for other users.

 

From a security standpoint, IBM's data masking solutions may be expensive or cumbersome for some, or may not provide all of the PII discovery or privacy functions for others.

Solutions

Speed sorts, joins, and aggregations in DataStage with a one-pass operation by calling CoSort Sort Control Language (SortCL) in a sequential file stage or Before-Job Subroutine. Run large data transformations without encumbering other jobs in DataStage, your database, or BI tool. You can also specify file-format and data-type conversions, field-level masking functions, custom reports, and pre-sorted load files.

For faster aggregations specifically, add a sequential file stage prior to the aggregation stage. In that sequential file stage, run an a SortCL job to externally pre-sort the file on break keys, and then, define the sorted fields in the aggregation stage.

Data at rest in tables and flat files within DataStage can be sensitive, containing personally identifiable information that is subject to confidentiality restrictions and data privacy laws. SortCL licensed in IRI CoSort -- or via compatible IRI FieldShield data masking product or IRI Voracity data management (and ETL) platform operations -- can protect column/field values in any ODBC-connected database, or standalone flat-file source.

Your business rules dictate the feature you choose to apply to each column; i.e. format-preserving AES-256, FIPS-compliant OpenSSL, 3DES, and/or GPG encryption, lookup-value substitution (pseudonymization), character masking, hashing, redaction, custom expression logic, substring, or user field function.

IRI Voracity through its constituent (or standalone) IRI RowGen software product generates safe, realistic test data using COBOL or CoSort metadata, .dsx-defined files, and any RDB data models connected through JDBC. Use RowGen to create compliant, realistic test data from random generation and/or set-file selection, and customize it even further with built-in data manipulation and formatting functionality. Voracity also includes database subsetting and masking for testing in lower environments, too.

Facilitate migration from DataStage to faster, more affordable ETL operations in IRI Voracity using Erwin Mapping Manager (AnalytiX DS) or Code-Automation Frameworks (CATfx). This proven technology, as well as ADS Lite Speed Conversion services, finally gives ETL architects and the CIO/CFO suite the ability to save hundreds of thousands of dollars immediately, and shift to a low-cost operational expense going forward.

Other Resources