Microsoft SQL Server CDC Connector > Introduction to Microsoft SQL Server CDC Connector > Integration with the PowerExchange CDC environment
  

Integration with the PowerExchange CDC environment

You must have a functional on-premises PowerExchange CDC for Microsoft SQL Server environment that captures change records for source tables from the SQL Server distribution database and logs the changes to PowerExchange Logger for Linux, UNIX, and Windows log files. Also, you must have a license that allows your organization to use the SQL Server CDC Connector and PowerExchangeClient packages on Linux or Windows.
On each system from which you plan to use the SQL Server CDC Connector, you must install the Secure Agent. After you start the Secure Agent the first time, the SQL Server CDC Connector and PowerExchangeClient components are installed locally. You then can use Cloud Data Integration, Administrator, and Monitor interfaces to configure SQL Server CDC connections, mappings, and mapping tasks and to run and monitor mapping tasks.
The following image shows the general architecture of the SQL Server CDC Connector components with Cloud Data Integration and a remote PowerExchange CDC for SQL Server source system:
In this configuration, the PowerExchange change capture environment resides on one Windows system and the SQL Server CDC Connector environment resides on another Linux or Windows system. The PowerExchange Navigator runs on a Windows system apart from both environments. Based on this image, the following processing occurs:
  1. 1PowerExchange actively captures change records from the Microsoft SQL Server distribution database and sends the records to the PowerExchange Logger for Linux, UNIX, and Windows on a continuous basis.
    2. To capture change records, the PowerExchange uses the capture registrations and extractions maps that you defined in the PowerExchange Navigator for the SQL Server source tables.
  2. 2The PowerExchange Logger logs the change records in its log files.
    3. The PowerExchange Logger configuration is defined by the pwxccl.cfg configuration file.
  3. 3When you design a mapping in Data Integration, you associate the Source transformation with a SQL Server CDC connection. You can define the connection in either Data Integration or Administrator. The PWX CDC Metadata Adapter then uses the SQL Server CDC connection to connect to the PowerExchange Listener and retrieve extraction-map metadata for the SQL Server source from the PowerExchange CAMAPS file.
    4. In the mapping, you must also define a Target transformation and connection and map the source fields to target fields.
  4. 4The Secure Agent in conjunction with Data Integration sends the extraction-map metadata to the Informatica Intelligent Cloud Services repository in the cloud.
  5. 5When you run the mapping task that is associated with the mapping, all of the CDC metadata, connection properties, mapping information, advanced source properties, CDC runtime properties, and advanced session properties are pushed down to the on-premises Secure Agent in the form of a session .xml file.
  6. 6The PWX CDC Reader on the Secure Agent machine communicates with the PowerExchange Listener to retrieve the change records from PowerExchange Logger log files.
  7. 7Data Integration transmits the change records to the mapped target.
Alternative configurations of PowerExchange with the SQL Server CDC Connector components and Cloud Data Integration are possible. For example: