Shadowing Practice: Top 30 IICS interview questions and answers | Informatica cloud interview questions full video #iics - Learn English Speaking with Video

The first question is what is the difference between Informatica Power Center and Informatica Cloud?

So the answer is Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services, nothing but IACS is a cloud-based integration platform,

which is nothing but I-PaaS.

IACS helps you to integrate, synchronize all data and applications residing on your on-premise and cloud environments.

But when it's coming to power center it only supports on-premise environment applications.

IACS provides similar functionality as power center but in a better way and you can access via the internet.

Hence in IACS there is no need to install any client applications on your personal computer

or server all the supported applications can be accessed from the browser

and tasks can be developed through browser ui

if you buy the license then informatica gives you the credentials

so using that credentials you can directly go to the informatica url

and you can log in through browser and you can develop your code

but in power center the client applications needs to be installed

on your server in iacs we can request the features based on our usage like

if you use only sql server as your source

and target you can get the license to create these connections only not for all

or if you

if you need like a file watcher job then you can

procure only the file watcher license like this based on your

usage like your requirement you are going to procure the license

for the particular features

but in power center you need to procure the license based

on the edition irrespective of whether you use a certain feature or not

the second question is where does the metadata get stored in informatica cloud

so all the metadata gets stored in informatica cloud repository in

iacs unlike power center all the information in informatica cloud is stored on the server maintained by the informatica

and the user does not have an access to the repository

database hence it is not possible to use any sql query on metadata tables to retrieve the information like informatica power center

for example suppose i have one connection i want to replace that connection with other connection

like my database is going to change

so at the time normally in power center we can write one query to get the information like

that connection where we have used in which mappings we have used

which sessions we have used but here like in in iacs we we cannot do like

that because everything like it is going to store in informatica repository and that repository is going to maintained by Informatica.

So normally user does not have an access to Informatica repository in IACS.

So the various metadata information that gets stored in IACS repository includes like source

and target metadata and connection information and mappings schedules and logging

and monitoring information everything like it is stored it is going to stored in IICS repository.

And the third question is what is the difference between a union transformation in Informatica cloud

and in Informatica power center like in in in Informatica power center

and also earlier versions of informatica cloud the union transformation allows only two groups to define in it hence

if three different source groups needs to be mapped to the

target then the user must first create a union for two groups first

and then whatever the outcome is coming from

that first union we are going to we are going to union with the group with another union union two so

we need two unions if we have three groups of data to to unite

and in latest version informatica cloud it is supporting multiple groups

so all the input groups can be handled in a single union transformation and the fourth question is explain dynamic linking

so informatica cloud enables us to establish a target file at

runtime we can use this feature only in mappings in target we can select the create new at runtime option

so we can choose a static file name

that can be displaced with with a new file whenever the

mapping operates with the same name we can also create a dynamic file name such as

that whenever such that whenever the mapping runs we can create a file with the new name

and the fifth question is what is what is what system variables are available in IACS to perform incremental loading so normally

if you want to perform the incremental loading in power center

you need to you need to uh calculate the run time like a last run last successful run

or you need to

calculate manually like what is the last run date and everything

so here uh here like it it is going to provide the two system variables

that is like the last run time and last run date

so it returns the last time when the task runs successfully

and the last run date returns only the last date on

which the task runs successfully so these values are stored in informatica cloud server

and our cloud repository

and it is not possible to override the values of these

parameters these parameters only stores the data date time value in um utc time zone

and the sixth question is how to pass data from one mapping to other in informatica cloud integration

so the data can be passed from one mapping to other mapping informatica cloud

through a task flow using parameters so the mapping task first mapping task

which passes the data should have an in-out parameter defined using set variable functions so this normally

we can we can use this set variable function in expression level to assign the value to the parameter

and then in second mapping task

which receives the data should either have an input parameter

or in-out parameter defined in mapping to read the data passed from upstream task.

The first question is explain about Informatica Cloud Runtime Environment.

Informatica Cloud Runtime Environment is the execution platform that runs Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services assets such as tasks and task flows.

You must have at least one runtime environment in each organization so that users in the organization can run tasks.

A runtime environment consists of one or more secure agents.

Basically it is the server upon which your data gets staged while processing.

You can choose either to process via the informatica servers or your local servers which stays behind your firewall.

Informatica supports following runtime environments.

Those are informatica cloud hosted agent, serverless runtime environment and informatica cloud secure agent.

The second question is what is the Informatica Cloud Secure Agent?

Informatica Cloud Secure Agent is a lightweight self upgrading program

that you need to install in your server

and register it with Informatica Cloud Repository using the unique registration code provided for your organization account.

It runs all tasks and enables secure communication across the firewall between your organization and Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services.

The third question is what is a synchronization task?

Synchronization task automates the data synchronization process between a source and target and target.

Synchronization helps in maintaining same data between different systems and enables accuracy.

A synchronization task can be built easily from the IACS UI by selecting the source

and target without use of any transformations like in mappings.

You can also use expressions to transform the data according to your business logic

or use data filters to filter data before writing it to the targets

and use lookup data from other objects and fetch a value.

So in synchronization tasks you can use expressions data filters and lookups.

Anyone without power center mapping or transformation knowledge can easily build synchronization tasks as UI guides you step by step.

The next question is what is a replication task?

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A replication task allows you to replicate data from a database table or selected sources to a desired destination.

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By using data replication you can backup or warehouse data and copy data sets.

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You can choose to replicate all the source rows or rows

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that changes since the last runtime of task using built-in incremental processing mechanism of replication task.

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You can choose from three different type of operations when you replicate data to a target.

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Those are Incremental load after initial full load.

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Incremental load after initial partial load.

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Full load each run.

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The next question is, what is the difference between a synchronization task and replication task?

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In a synchronization task, you can transform the data before loading it into the target.

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In a replication task, you can replicate the data from source to target without transforming the data.

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A replication task can replicate an entire schema and all the tables in it at a time,

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which is not possible in synchronization task.

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A replication task comes with a built-in incremental processing mechanism.

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In synchronization task user needs to handle the incremental data processing.

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The next question is what is the primary purpose of Informatica Cloud?

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The primary purpose of Informatica Cloud is to resolve the data integration problem

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that takes place when we have to move the data from legacy architecture to the cloud based architecture.

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Through the Informatica Cloud, we can resolve the issue of handling fragmented data inside and outside the firewall.

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What is the Mapping Configuration Task or Mapping Task in IACS?

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A Mapping Configuration Task or Mapping Task in IACS is equivalent to the session in the Informatica Power Center.

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Normally both are same mapping configuration task

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or mapping task both are same just some people will call it as mapping configuration task.

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The shortcut is MCT or mapping task the shortcut is MT.

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When you create a mapping task you must select a mapping to use in the task.

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Mapping task allows you to process data based on a data flow logic defined in a mapping.

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Optionally you can also configure parameters that associated with the mapping

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and also pre and post processing commands

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and also advanced session properties to boost the performance and also you can configure the task to run on schedule.

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So we can do scheduling for mapping configuration task.

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Explained task flow in IACS.

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Task flow is similar to the workflow in Informatica Power Center.

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Task flow regulates the execution order of the mapping configuration task or the synchronization task according to the previous task output.

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To create a task flow you must first create the task and then add them to a task flow.

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The task flow allows you to run the task sequentially

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or parallelly and also to make the decision based on the outcome from one task before triggering the next task.

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What is the difference between a task flow and linear task flow in IACS?

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A linear task flow is a simplified version of the data integration task flow

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and it groups the multiple data integration tasks and runs them serially in the specified order.

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If a task defined in a linear task flow gets failed, you need to restart the entire task flow.

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There is no option to restart the job from failed task.

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But in task flow, we have that option.

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It just allows you to run the tasks parallelly

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and also it is having some advanced decision making capabilities

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that allows you to either restart from failed task or skip it when a task fails.

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The next question is how the Informatica server source the string values in rank transformation.

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This is very important interview question for PCS Infosys and also I got this question in Informatica.

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When I attended interview for these organizations I got this question So before going to explain answer for this question,

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I just wanna explain what is the rank transformation.

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So what it will do.

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So the rank transformation is one of the transformation available in Informatica.

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I have seen this transformation both in IACS and Power Center.

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It just works like a rank function in the SQL.

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It just seem like that.

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It just give the ranking on particular field.

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which you have selected. In the rank transformation.

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So and also it just returns either top or bottom values

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for that particular field on which you are going to sort and give the ranking.

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It just creates one more port.

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Rank port.

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For giving the ranking like 1 2 3.

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So we can use that rank.

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code for next transformation for making some logic. If this.

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If this requirement we have like.

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If you wanna sort the.

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Tring fields like string values then that time how informatica source the data.

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So data integration uses the session sort order configured for the mapping task.

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So what is the property we have used?

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What is the value we have given for session sort order property

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which is existed in the advanced session properties of the mapping task?

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Based on that it just source the string values.

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It may be binary or some specific language like Danish or Spanish.

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If you have some specific requirement like you wanna do sorting on particular language,

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then you have to change that property.

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I'll show that where you have to exactly change that property in the next slide.

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shown in the screenshot you have to open the mapping task

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there in the schedules you will see in the top sorry

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bottom you will see advanced session properties right here we have add button

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so click on add button just it will show the session

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property list you have to select their session sort order this is the option

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and select value as session property value as binary

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or you know whatever the specific language you want spanish dash and off so based on this selection

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in rank transformation the string values string fields it will sort

183

the next question is can we run power center jobs in informatica cloud this is very important informatica question

184

when the client is having requirement like they are migrating power center jobs to the informatica cloud

185

that time mostly this question they will ask.

186

The answer is yes.

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There is a power center task available in the informatica cloud

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where user have to upload the xml file exported from the power center and run the job as a power center task.

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You can update an existing power center task to use a different power center xml file

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but cannot make the changes to the imported xml.

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When you upload a new power center xml file to an existing power center task,

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the power center task release the old xml file

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and updates the Power Center task definition based on the new XML file content.

194

Explain what is Pushdown Optimization in Informatica Cloud.

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Basically this Pushdown Optimization is one of the performance tuning technique in IACS which helps us to execute the

196

SQL statements at database level.

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The idea behind of this pushdown optimization technique is processing the data on database level

198

because processing the data on database level is much faster and efficient compared to the processing the data in informatica.

199

So the number of interactions between the Informatica and database is going to decrease if we execute

200

or processing the data on database level. So internally

201

if you check this pushdown optimization take sorry option at mapping task level Informatica is going to create internally the SQL statement

202

for transformation logic, how much it can convert that much transformation logic is going to

203

keep in SQL statement and pushed towards either source database or target database or both.

204

So the amount of data transformation logic that can be pushed to the database depends on the database type,

205

transformation logic, and mapping task configuration.

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Whatever left the transformation logic after creating the SQL statements,

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whatever the transformation logic, it is not gonna push towards the database, that transformation logic it's gonna,

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I mean Informatica is going to process at Informatica level.

209

The next question is explain partitioning in Informatica Cloud data integration.

210

First of all you have to know what is partitioning.

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Partitioning is nothing but enabling the parallel processing of the data through separate pipelines.

212

This is one of the important interview question because interviewer asked like how you can do performance tuning in informatica cloud.

213

What are the techniques we have?

214

So this is one of the techniques

215

and in informatica cloud we have only two types of partitioning methods

216

but in informatica power center we have multiple number of partitioning methods

217

so be carefully understand what are the partitioning methods here in IACS

218

with the partitioning enabled you can select the number of partitions for the mapping

219

then DTM process creates a reader thread transformation thread

220

and writer thread for each partition allow the data to be processed concurrently

221

so that we can reduce the execution time of the task.

222

And there are two major partitioning methods supported in IACS one is key range partitioning.

223

How it will works means it distributes the data into multiple partitions based on the partition key

224

which we have selected and the range of the values defined for it.

225

So what you have to do once you selected the key

226

and partitioning you have to give the partitioning key and also the start and end ranges of the values for that.

227

So that based on that it will segregate the data load.

228

How it will load means by partitioning the key,

229

it just segregate the data to threads and it will execute.

230

And next one is fixed partitioning.

231

Here we can enable for sources which are not relational.

232

So when we use means if the source is not relational

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that time we are going to use this fixed partitioning

234

and you have to select number of partitions by passing a

235

value after selecting the fixed partitioning in the drop down and default value will be none.

236

If you are not selecting any number of partitions then the default value will be none.

237

The next question is how to invoke Informatica Cloud tasks based on a file event.

238

To trigger tasks based on a file event Informatica Cloud provides a component called file listener.

239

A file listener listens to the files on a defined location.

240

Suppose I have one requirement like there is a folder.

241

In that folder if any new file has created or updated or deleted then my task has to trigger.

242

If there is nothing happen, there is no file event occurs, then it should not run.

243

If only any file event occurs, follows to trigger that task.

244

For this requirement, I'm going to create one file listener with a specific folder and a file pattern.

245

File pattern means the file name pattern we have to mention in

246

that file listener and the specific folder means the monitoring folder like in

247

which folder we are looking that file has to come

248

or updated or deleted that folder we have to mention in that file listener.

249

Then if any file event occurs like new file has arrived

250

or any update or delete has happened to

251

that particular file pattern of a file then it's gonna notify back

252

so that my task is going to trigger if any event has occurred.

253

The next question is include all incoming fields from an upstream transformation except fields with dates what should you do?

254

This is very basic IACS question

255

so to configure like this first of all we have to configure two field rules in a transformation.

256

First one use all field rule to include all fields coming from upstream transformation

257

and then create a fields by data types rule to exclude fields by data type

258

and there you have to select date and time as the data type to exclude from incoming fields.

259

You understood right?

260

First one you have to create one include fields with a rule all fields

261

and the next one you have to create exclude fields with fields by data types rule.

262

So that there you have to give what data type you wanna exclude.

263

So date and time, the fields which are coming with date and time data type.

264

Those fields it's gonna exclude from coming incoming fields.

265

The next question is what is the difference between the connected and unconnected sequence generated transformation in IACS?

266

sequence generator can be used in two different ways in Informatica Cloud.

267

One with incoming fields disabled and other with incoming fields not disabled.

268

The difference between the sequence generator with incoming fields enabled

269

and disabled is when next valve field is mapped to the multiple transformations.

270

Suppose the sequence generator with incoming fields not disabled,

271

then it generates the same sequence of numbers for each downstream transformation.

272

And if a sequence generator with incoming fields disabled,

273

will generate unique sequence numbers for each downstream transformation.

274

You understood right?

275

The next question is what is Informatica Cloud Debugger?

276

Informatica Cloud Debugger helps you preview data at any point in a mapping for troubleshooting the errors in data integration mappings.

277

So this is one of the troubleshooting technique in Informatica Cloud.

278

To run the Informatica Cloud Debugger, mapping should be valid up to the selector transformation.

279

consider a scenario suppose i have i built sorry i built a mapping

280

but the output of the mapping is not as i expected

281

so i wanna check my transformation logic where the data is not processing correctly actually the output

282

or some um the mapping is running but my logic is somewhere it's incorrect.

283

I'm unable to find out by seeing that mapping logic.

284

I wanna check data preview so that I can understand where my transformation logic is incorrect.

285

So for that I'm not going to create any temporary target to view

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how much sorry how the data transformed at any particular transformation in a mapping.

287

I am going to use this Informatica debugger so that you can identify or preview.

288

Sorry, you can preview data at any point in the mapping instead of creating the temporary target.

289

What is data masking?

290

The data masking mechanism enables you to stop exposing sensitive data to non-production environments.

291

Using data masking rules, you can define the logic to mask or replace selected columns with duplicate values.

292

I will tell one simple realistic example real time suppose

293

if we have some personal ident personally identifiable information

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which means pii information like email address phone number bank account number

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or government issued id number social security number this type of pia information if we have

296

in our data and that real data we need to test in QA or in dev environment.

297

That time we cannot showcase that personal data of customer or user to the unauthorized people.

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So we have to mask this type of data in lower environments.

299

That time we use this data masking technique to mask those type of information columns in lower environments.

300

The next one is explain discovery IQ.

301

Discovery IQ is one of the module in IACS like data integration,

302

application integration and administrator or monitor.

303

Likewise there is another module discovery IQ as shown in the diagram

304

and this discovery IQ gives you a complete overview of the number of processes and jobs in your organization.

305

Using this discovery IQ, you can even get to know more about KPIs like data volumes,

306

successful and failed jobs, etc. You can also perform log analysis by directly downloading from discovery IQ.

307

What is data assessment?

308

The data assessment task in IACS streamlines the process to assess data quality.

309

It also enables you to check things like file completeness,

310

record duplication, field conformances, address validity,

311

etc. You can configure filters on data to get the data that meets requirements.

312

The next question is how does IACS handle last data volumes?

313

IACS handles last data volumes using the techniques of partitioning, pushdown optimization and high speed connectors.

314

Partitioning is the mechanism IACS provides for dividing the data into smaller,

315

more manageable chunks or partitions and process each partition separately.

316

So the idea behind partitioning is if we have bulk load,

317

so we are going to create partitions so that that data is going to segregate into different chunks.

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And these partitions IAC is going to run parallelly.

319

So it is going to divide the data and separately parallel is going to run that data by creating the separate pipelines.

320

and by using this partitioning we can increase the performance

321

and we can load the data quickly the detailed description of partitioning like types of partitioning

322

and all I explained in the previous video I'm going to give that link in this video description Just go through that.

323

And also I have covered pushdown optimization in that same video.

324

So just go to that video and understand what is partitioning and pushdown optimization.

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I will give a smaller line for pushdown optimization.

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Basically this is the concept of executing the transformation logic. in database level.

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So for transformation logic, IACS is going to create an SQL statement

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to execute that either in source side database or target side database or both.

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So how much logic, transformation logic,

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IACS can keep in SQL statement that much it can write into SQL

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and this SQL statements are going to execute on database so

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that we can reduce the number of interactions between in Informatica and database so that the performance is going to increase.

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The efficiency also going to increase.

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And the third one is high speed connector.

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IACS offers high speed connectors for various data sources enabling faster data transfer.

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The next question is in which scenario you have used synchronization task.

337

This is one of the important IACS interview real-time question because if interviewer

338

wants to know you are really worked on IACS in previous organization

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if you kept something like I worked on synchronization task in your resume then these type of questions he will shoot.

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So you have to know the answer for this question.

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Normally most of the projects we use the synchronization task to load the data from source to stage tables.

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If you know the answer

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if you really worked on synchronization task in previous projects then

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tell your answers answer where you used in your project if you don't know then give this answers to answer to interviewer

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how can you schedule the mapping iac provides scheduler also So by using Informatica IACS scheduler,

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you can schedule the mapping task.

347

If a workflow got failed in prod environment, can we do the code change for that failed mapping in production environment

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or in dev environment mention the step by step approach

349

basically this is the question interviewer asked when they are taking you for informatica support

350

that time this type of questions he will shoot to know basic things you know or not so if

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workflow got failed in the prod environment.

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First, we have to check the reason for failure.

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If suppose any code change is required, then only we can, I mean,

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mitigate that failure, then we have to do that change in dev environment.

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And again, we have to do unit testing and then deploy the code to test and then move to prod.

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We should never develop or change the mapping in test or prod environment.

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The next question is have you parameterized in IACS?

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This is also a real time question.

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If you worked on IACS, if you parameterized in previous projects,

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then you tell your answer.

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Otherwise, if you don't know,

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then tell like, yes, I have used and I have created two types of parameters.

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One is input parameters.

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And another one is in-out parameters.

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This input parameters I have used to parameter as the source target lookup connections.

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And in-out parameter I have used to create the mapping variables and mapping parameters.

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Basically this in-out parameter I have used for incremental loading purpose.

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Tell answer like this.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

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Thank you.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing Practice: Top 30 IICS interview questions and answers | Informatica cloud interview questions full video #iics - Learn English Speaking with Video

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