Catalog Source Configuration > Informatica PowerCenter

Informatica PowerCenter

PowerCenter is an Informatica product that extracts data from multiple sources, transforms the data according to business logic, and loads the transformed data into different target databases. You can run connection-aware scans on PowerCenter sources.

For more information about the prerequisites for connecting PowerCenter to Metadata Command Center, see Knowledge Base article 000206922.

Objects extracted

The metadata extraction extracts the following objects from a PowerCenter source system:

•Folder
•Repository
•Workflow
•Workflow Instance
•Calculation
•Mapping
•Session
•Session Instance

Prerequisites for configuring the PowerCenter catalog source

Perform the following tasks before you create the catalog source:

•If you installed the Secure Agent on a machine that doesn't host the Informatica domain, install the pmrep command line utility on the Secure Agent machine.
•Set the INFA_HOME variable to point to the location of the cmd utilities installed or the PowerCenter client location. The library path environment variable, LD_LIBRARY_PATH, should point to $INFA_HOME/server/bin.
•To perform a connection-aware scan, run the catalog source job. After the job completes, assign connections and run the job again. For more information about the types of connection scans and assigning connections, see Administration.

Permissions to configure the catalog source

•Configure the Access Repository Manager privilege for the user who accesses the PowerCenter repository.
•Configure read permission on the PowerCenter repository for the user account that you use to access the repository.
•Run the pmrep ObjectExport command to export the mappings from PowerCenter.

Connection properties

On the Registration page in Metadata Command Center, specify values for the properties to connect to the PowerCenter repository. The following table shows the values for the properties to connect to the PowerCenter source system:

Property	Description
Pmrep path	The path to the pmrep command line program. For example, $INFA_HOME/PowerCenter/server/bin/pmrep.
Repository name	The name of the PowerCenter repository service to connect to.
Domain host and port	The host name and port number of the Informatica domain. For example, Informatica_Domain_host>:<Port>.
Security domain	The name of the security domain to which the user belongs.
User	The name of the Informatica domain user who has access to the PowerCenter repository.
Password	The password for the Informatica domain user who has access to the PowerCenter repository.
Pmrep timeout in seconds	The timeout duration for the pmrep connect command. The default value is 600 seconds.

Configuration parameters for metadata extraction

If a PowerCenter repository uses parameter files in sessions and workflows, you can configure Metadata Command Center to read the parameter files when you configure the PowerCenter catalog source. A parameter file contains all the parameters and variables and their associated values configured for workflows, worklets, or sessions in the PowerCenter repository. PowerCenter parameters can represent flat file sources, flat file lookups, flat file targets, relational connections, expressions at the transformation level, or objects in SQL overrides. The PowerCenter catalog source parses the parameter files and substitutes the parameter values to extract metadata for the flat file sources, flat file lookups, flat file targets, relational connections, and objects in SQL overrides.

To enable the PowerCenter catalog source to read parameter values from a parameter file, verify the file has a .prm extension. The following example shows a sample parameters.prm file:

[Map_Param.WF:WF_Src_Tgt_map_param_case.ST:s_src_tgt_tbl_override_default_map_param]
$$Src_OwnName=MM_PERF6
$$Src_TblName=TBL_SAME_COL
$$Tgt_Tbl_Prefix=MM_PERF6
$$Tgt_TblName=INVENTORY_Q4_2005
[Param_lookup.WF:wf_M_LKP_schema_tble
$$LKP_SCHEMA=TEST_DATA
$$LKP_TBL=LKP_TBL_PARAM
[Param_lookup.WF:wf_M_LKP_schema_tbl_sess_param]
$Param_Lkp_Schema=TEST_DATA
$Param_Lkp_Tbl=LKP_TBL_PARAM[
Param_session.WF:wf_session_param.ST:s_session_param]
$Param_Schema_Name=CROSS_RESOURCE_LINKING_DUP
$Param_SrcTbl_Name=SRC_TBL_NAME_OVERRIDE_PARAM
$Param_TgtTbl_Name=TGT_TBL_NAME_OVERRIDE_PARAM
[Param_Sql_override.WF:wf_M_schema_table_map_parm_sql.ST:s_M_schema_table_map_parm_sql]
$$Map_Schema_Name=CROSS_RESOURCE_LINKING
$$Map_Tbl_Name=SRC_TBL_NAME_OVERRIDE_DUP

You can expand the Catalog Source Configuration Options in the Metadata Extraction tab of the Configuration page. Configure the following parameters for extracting metadata from a PowerCenter repository:

Parameter	Description
Explicit parameters	Specify additional Informatica parameters with overridden or missing definitions.
Parameter file path replacements	Specify one or more Informatica file mappings to local files. The metadata extraction service uses local copies of files instead of connecting to an Informatica PowerCenter installation. This mapping is used with Informatica parameter files and with indirect source files. The values in the Path field are substituted by the values in the Replacement field in order to resolve workflow parameter file references.

Parameter

Description

Explicit parameters

Specify additional Informatica parameters with overridden or missing definitions.

Parameter file path replacements

Specify one or more Informatica file mappings to local files. The metadata extraction service uses local copies of files instead of connecting to an Informatica PowerCenter installation. This mapping is used with Informatica parameter files and with indirect source files. The values in the Path field are substituted by the values in the Replacement field in order to resolve workflow parameter file references.

Referenced source systems

If the source system references another source system, create a connection assignment in Metadata Command Center to view data lineage with endpoints. To create a connection assignment, create a connection based on the referenced source system, and then assign the connection to the catalog source.

Note: You can view the lineage with reference objects without creating a connection assignment. After connection assignment, you can view the actual objects.

You can connect to the following types of referenced source systems:

•Amazon Redshift. The catalog source must belong to the Database class type.
•Amazon S3. The catalog source must belong to the S3 Bucket class type.
•File System. The catalog source must belong to the File System class type.
•IBM Db2 for LUW. The catalog source must belong to the Database class type.
•Microsoft Azure Synapse. The catalog source must belong to the Database class type.
•Microsoft SQL Server. The catalog source must belong to the Database class type.
•Oracle. The catalog source must belong to the Database class type.
•Snowflake. The catalog source must belong to the Database class type.
•Teradata Database. The catalog source must belong to the Database class type.

Note: For catalog sources that you created before the April 2023 release with connections assigned at the schema level, purge and run the catalog source again.