Teradata Interview Questions and answers

Question.1 What is the difference between FastLoad and MultiLoad?

Answer: FastLoad uses multiple sessions to quickly load large amount of data on
empty table. MultiLoad is used for high-volume maintenance on tables and views. It
works with non-empty tables also. Maximum 5 tables can be used in MultiLoad.
Question.2 Which is faster?
Answer: FastLoad.
Question.3 Difference between Inner join and outer join?
Answer: An inner join gets data from both tables where the specified data exists in
both tables.
An outer join gets data from the source table at all times, and returns data from the
outer joined table ONLY if it matches the criteria.[sociallocker]
Question.4 What is multi Insert?
Answer: Inserting data records into the table using multiple insert statements.
Putting a semi colon in front of the key word INSERT in the next statement rather
than terminating the first statement with a semi colon achieves it.
Insert into Sales select * from customer
Insert into Loan select * from customer;
Question.5 Is multi insert ANSI standard?
Answer: No.
Question.6 How do you create a table with an existing structure of
another table with data and with no data?
Answer: Create table Customer dummy as Customer with data / with no data;
Question.7 What is the opening step in Basic Teradata Query script?
Answer: Logon tdipid/username, password.
Question.8 You are calling a Bteq script, which drops a table and creates a
table. It will throw an error if the table does not exist. How can you do it
without throwing the error?
Answer: You can it by setting error level to zero before dropping and resetting the
error level to 8 after dropping.
Question.9 ERRORLEVEL (3807)
Answer: SEVERITY 8;
Question.10 Can you FastExport a field, which is primary key by putting
equality on that key?
Answer: No.
Question.11 Did you write stored procedures in Teradata?

Answer: No, because they become a single amp operation and my company didnt
encourage that.
Question.12 What is the use of having indexs on table?
Answer: For faster record search.
Question.13 Did you use Query man or SQL assistance?
Answer: SQL assistant 6.1
Question.14. I am updating a table in Bteq. It has to update a large
number of rows, so its really slow. What do you suggest?
Answer: In Teradata it is not recommended to update more than 1 million rows due
to journal space problems, if it is less than that and its slow in the Bteq, you might
want to add collect statistics statement before the update statement.
Question.15 Is it necessary to add? QUIT statement after a Bteq query
when I am calling it in a Unix environment?
Answer: Not necessary but it is good to add a QUIT statement after a query.
Question.16 There is a column with date in it. If I want to get just month
how It can be done? Can I use sub string?
Answer: Sub string is used with char fields. So it cannot be used. To extract month
from a date column, ex select extract (month from ). Same thing for year or day.Or
hour or minutes if its a time stamp (select extract (minute from column name).
Question.17 Whats the syntax of sub string?
Answer: SUBSTRING (string_expression, n1 [n2])
Question.18 Did you use CASE WHEN statement. Can you tell us a little
about it?
Answer: Yes. When a case has to be selected depending upon the value of the
expression.
Question.19 While creating table my DBA has FALLBACK or NO FALLBACK
in his DDL. What is that?
Answer: FALLBACK requests that a second copy of each row inserted into a table
be stored on another AMP in the same cluster. This is done when AMP goes down or
disk fails.[/sociallocker]

Informatica ETL Interview Questions and Answers

Question.1 Can you use mapping without source qualifier?
Answer: Not possible, If source RDEMS/DBMS/Flat file use SQ or use normalizer if
the source cobol feed.
Question 2.When do you use a normalizer?
Answer: Normalized can be used in Relational to denormilize data. [sociallocker]

Question.3 What are stored procedure transformations. Purpose of sp trar

sformation. How did you go about using your project?
Answer: Connected and unconnected stored procedure.
Unconnected stored procedure used for data base level activities such as pre and
post load Connected stored procedure used in informatica level for example passing
one parameter as input and capturing return value from the stored procedure.
Normal row wise check
Pre-Load Source (Capture source incremental data for incremental aggregation)
Post-Load Source (Delete Temporary tables)
Pre-Load Target (Check dick space available)
Post-Load Target (Drop and recreate index)
Question.4 What is lookup and difference between Types of lookup. What
exactly happens when a lookup is cached. How does a dynamic: lookup
cache work.
Answer: Lookup transformation used for check values in the source and target
tables(primary key values). There are 2 type connected and unconnected
transformation
Connected lookup returns multiple values if condition true Where as unconnected
return a single values through return port.
Connected lookup return default user value if the condition does not mach Where as
unconnected return null values Lookup cache does: Read the source/target table
and stored in the lookup cache .
Question.5 How did you schedule sessions in your project?
Answer: Run once (set 2 parameter date and time when session should start) Run
Every (Informatica server run session at regular interval as we configured,
parameter Days, hour, minutes, end on, end after, forever)
Customized repeat (Repeat every 2 days, daily frequency hr, min, every week,
every month) Run only on demand(Manually run) this not session scheduling.
Question.6 Explain lookup cache, various caches?
Answer: Lookup transformation used for check values in the source and target
tables(primary key values). Various Caches:
Persistent cache (we can save the lookup cache files and reuse them the next time
process the lookup transformation)
Re-cache from database (if the persistent cache not synchronized with lookup table
you can- configure the lookup transformation to rebuild the lookup cache)
Static cache (When the lookup condition is true, Informatica server return a value
from lookup cache and its does not update the cache while it processes the lookup
transformation)
Dynamic cache (Informatica server dynamically inserts new rows or update existing
rows in the cache and the target. Suppose if we want lookup a target table we can
use dynamic cache)

Shared cache (we can share lookup transformation between multiple

transformations in a mapping.2 lookup in a mapping can share single lookup
cache) .
Question.7 Which path will the cache be created?
Answer: User specified directory. If we say c:\ all the cache files created in this
directory.
Question.8 where do you specify all the parameters for lookup caches?
Answer: Lookup property sheet/tab.
Question.9 How do you remove the cache files after the transformation?
Answer: After session complete, DTM remove cache memory and deletes caches
files. In case using persistent cache and Incremental aggregation then caches files
will be saved.
Question.10 What is the use of aggregator transformation?
Answer: To perform Aggregate calculation Use conditional clause to filter data in
the expression Sum(commission, Commission >2000) Use non-aggregate function if
(max(quantity) > 0, Max(quantity), 0))
Question.11 What are the contents of index and cache files?
Answer: Index caches files hold unique group values as determined by group by
port in _the transformation. Data caches files hold row data until it performs
necessary calculation.
Question.12 How do you call a store procedure within a transformation?
Answer: In the expression transformation create new out port in the expression
write: sp. stored procedure name (arguments).
Question.13 Is there any performance issue in connected & unconnected
lookup? If yes, How?
Answer: Yes Unconnected lookup much more faster than connected lookup why
because in unconnected not connected to fly other transformation we are calling it
from other transformation so it minimize lookup cache value Where as connected
transformation connected to other transformation so it keeps values in the lookup
cache.
Question.14 What is dynamic lookup?
Answer: When we use target lookup table, Informatica server dynamically insert
new values or it updates if the values exist and passes to target table.
Question. 15 How lnfcrmatica read data if source have one relational and
flat file?
Answer: Use joiner transformation after source qualifier before other
transformation.
Question.16 How you will load unique record into target flat file from
source f13t files has duplicate data?
Answer: There are 2 we can de this either we can use R. ink transformation or
oracle external table in rank transformation using group by port (Group it e records)
and then set no. of rank 1. Rank transformation return one value from the group.
That the values wit De a unique one.

Question.17 Can you use flat file for repository?

Answer: No, We cant
Question.18 Without Source Qualifier and joiner how will you join tables?
Answer: Yr -IPA% In session level we have option user defined join. Where we can
write join condition.
Question.19 Update strategy set DD_Update but in session level have
insert. What will happens?
Answer: Insert take place. Because this option override the mapping level option .
[/sociallocker]

Informatica Interview Questions with answers

Question.1 What are the different uses of a repository manager?
Answer: Repository manager used to create repository which contains metadata
the informatca uses to transform data to from source to target. And also it use to
create inforrnatica users and folders and copy, backup and restore tie repository .
Question.2 How do you take care of security using a repository manager?
Answer: Using repository privileges, folder permission and locking. Repository
privileges(Session operator. Use designer, Browse repository, Create session and
batches, Administer repository, administer server, super user) Folder
permission(owner, groups, users) . Locking(Read, Write, Execute, Fetch, Save) .
[sociallocker]
Question.3 What is a folder?
Answer: Folder contains repository objects such as sources, targets, mappings,
transformation which are helps logically, organize our data warehouse.
Question.4 Can you create a folder within designer?
Answer: Not possible
Question.5 What are shortcuts? Where it can tie used? What are the
advantages?
Answer: There are two shortcuts (Local and global) Local used in local repository
and global used in global repository. The advantage is reusing an object without
creating multiple objects. Say for example a source definition want to use in 10
mappings in 10 different folders without creating 10 multiple source you create 10
shortcuts.
Question.6 how do you increase the performance of mappings?
Answer: Use single pass read(use one source qualifier instead of multiple SO for
same table) Minimize data type conversion (Integer to Decimal again back to
Integer) Optimize transformation(when you use Lookup, aggregator, filter, rank and
joiner).

Use caches for lookup Aggregator use presorted port, increase cache
size, minimize input/out port as much as possible Use Filter wherever
possible to avoid unnecessary data flow.
Question.7 Explain lnformatica Architecture?
Answer: Informatica consist of client and server. Client tools such as Repository
-manager, Designer, Server manager. Repository data base contains metadata it
read by inforrnatica server used read data from source, transforming and loading
into target.
Question.8 What are the constants used in update strategy?
Answer: OD_INSERT, DD_UPDATE, DD_DELETE, DD REJECT.
Question.9 what is difference between connected and unconnected lookup
transformation?
Answer: Connected lookup return multiple values to other transformation Where
as unconnected lookup return one values If lookup condition matches Connected
lookup return user defined default values Where as unconnected lookup return null
values Connected supports dynamic caches where as unconnected supports static.
Question.10 What you will do in session level for update strategy
transformation?
Answer:
In session property sheet set Treat rows as Data Driven .
Question.11 What are the port available for update strategy , sequence
generator, Lookup, stored procedure transformation?
Answer:
Transformations
Port

Update strategy
Sequence Generator
Lookup

Input, Output
Output only
Input, Output, Lookup, Return

Stored Procedure

Input, Output

Question.12 what is an active and passive transformation?

Answer: Active transformation change the no. of records when passing to
targe(example filter) where as passive transformation will not change the
transformation(example expression) .
Question.13 What are the tracing level?
Answer: Normal It contains only session initialization details and transformation
details no. records rejected, applied
Terse Only initialization details will be there Verbose Initialization Normal setting
information plus detailed information about the transformation.
Verbcse data Verbose in it. Settings and all information about the session .
Question.14

How will you make records in groups?

Answer: Using group by port in aggregator .

Question.15 Need to store value like 145 into target when you use
aggregator, how will you do that?
Answer: Use Round() function
Question.16 How will you move mappings from development to production
database?
Answer: Copy all the mapping from development repository and paste production
repository while paste it will prompt whether you want replace/rename. If say
replace informatica replace all the source tables with repository database.
Question.17 What is difference between aggregator and expression?
Answer: Aggregator is active transformation and expression is passive
transformation Aggregator transformation used to perform aggregate calculation on
group of records really Where as expression used perform calculation with single
record.
Question.18 What are Router transformation?
Answer: Router transformation is an Active and Connected transformation. It is
similar to filter transformation. The only difference is, filter transformation drops the
data that do not meet the condition whereas router has an option to capture the
data that do not meet the condition. It is useful to test multiple conditions.
Question.19 What are Sorter transformation?
Answer: Sorter transformation is a Connected and an Active transformation. It
allows to sort data either in ascending or descending order according to a specified
field.[/sociallocker]

Informatica Interview Questions experienced

Question.1 How to Join 2 tables connected to a Source Qualifier w/o
having any relationship defined .
Answer: By writing an sql override.
Question.2 In a mapping if three are 2 targets to load header and detail,
how to ensure that header loads first then detail table.
Answer: Constraint Based Loading (if no relationship at oracle level) OR Target
Load Plan (if only 1 source qualifier for other tables) OR select first the header
target table and then the detail table while dragging them in mapping.[sociallocker]
Question.3 A mapping just take 10 seconds to run, it takes a source file
and insert into target, but before that there is a Stored Procedure
transformation which takes around 5 minutes to run and gives output Y
or N. If Y then continue feed or else stop the feed. (Hint: since SP
transformation takes more time compared to the mapping, it shouldnt run
row wise).

Answer: There is an option to run the stored procedure before starting to load the
rows.
Question.4 What is difference between view and materialized view?
Answer: Views contains query whenever execute views it has read from base table
Where as M views loading or replicated takes place only once, which gives you
better query performance .refresh m views 1.on commit and 2. on demand
(Complete, never, fast, force) .
Question.5 What is bitmap index why its used for DWH?
Answer: bitmap for each key value replaces a list of rowids. Bitmap index more
efficient for data warehousing because low cardinality, low updates, very efficient
for where class
Question.6 What is star schema? And what is snowflake schema?
Answer: The center of the star consists of a large fact table and the points of the
star are the dimension tables. snowflake schemas normalized dimension tables to
eliminate redundancy. That is, the Dimension data has been grouped into multiple
tables instead of one large table.
Star schema contains demoralized dimension tables and fact table, each primary
key values in dimension table associated with foreign key of fact tables.
Here a fact table contains all business measures (normally numeric data) and
foreign key values, and dimension tables has details about the subject area.
Snowflake schema basically a normalized dimension tables to reduce redundancy in
the dimension tables .
Question.7 Why need staging area database for DWH?
Answer: Staging area needs to clean operational data before loading into data
warehouse.
cleaning in the sense your merging data which comes from different source .
Question.8 What are the steps to create a database in manually?
Answer: create OS service and create init file and start data base no mount stage
then give create data base command.
Question.9 Difference between OLTP and DWH?
Answer: OLTP system is basically application orientation (eg, purchase order it is
functionality of an application)
Where as in DWH concern is subject orient (subject in the sense customer, product,
item, time) .
Question.10 What is the significance of surrogate key?
Answer: Surrogate key used in slowly changing dimension table to track old and
new values and its derived from primary key.
Question.11 What is slowly changing dimension. What kind of scd used in
your project?

Answer: Dimension attribute values may change constantly over the time. (Say for
example customer dimension has customer_id ,name, and address, customer
address may change over time.
Question.12 Row will you handle this situation?
Answer: There are 3 types, one is we can overwrite the existing record, second
one is create additional new record at the time of change with the new attribute
values. Third one is create new field to keep new values in the original dimension
table.
Question.13 What is difference between primary key and unique key
constraints?
Answer: Primary key maintains uniqueness and not null values
Where as unique constrains maintain unique values and null values
Question.14 What are the types of index? And is the type of index used in
your project?
Answer: Bitmap index, B-tree index, Function based index, reverse key and
composite index.
We used Bitmap index in our project for better performance.
Question.15 A table have 3 partitions but I want to update in 3rd
partitions how will you do?
Answer: Specify partition name in the update statement. Say for example Update
employee partition(name) a, set a.empno=10 where ename=Ashok
Question.16 When you give an update statement how memory flow will
happen and how oracles allocate memory for that?
Answer: Oracle first checks in Shared sql area whether same Sql statement is
available if it is there it uses. Otherwise allocate memory in shared sql area and
then create run time memory in Private sql area to create parse tree and execution
plan. Once it completed stored in the shared sql area wherein previously allocated
memory .
Question.17 Write a query to find out 5th max salary? In Oracle, DB2, SQL
Server
Answer: Select (list the columns you want) from (select salary from employee
order by salary) Where rownum<5
Question.18 When you give an update statement how undo/rollback
segment will work/what are the steps?
Answer: Oracle keep old values in undo segment and new values in redo entries.
When you say rollback it replace old values from undo segment. When you say
commit erase the undo segment values and keep new vales in permanent.
Question.19 What is DTM? How will you configure it?
Answer:
DTM transform data received from reader buffer and its moves
transformation to transformation on row by row basis and it uses transformation
caches when necessary.[/sociallocker]

Informatica Interview questions with answers

Question.1 What are the components of Informatica? And what is the
purpose of each?
Answer: Informatica Designer, Server Manager & Repository Manager. Designer
for Creating Source & Target definitions, Creating Mapplets and Mappings etc.
Server Manager for creating sessions & batches, Scheduling the sessions & batches,
Monitoring the trig jered sessions and batches, giving post and pre session
commands, creating database connections tc various instances etc. Repository
Manage for Creating and Adding repositories, Creating & editing folders within a
repository, Establishing users, groups. privileges & folder permissions, Copy. delete,
bac :up a repository, Viewing the history of sessions, Viewing the locks on various
objects and removing those locks etc.
Question.2 What is a repository? And how to add it in an informatica
client?
Answer: Its a location where all the mappings and sessions related information is
stored. Basically its a database where the metadata resides. We can add a
repository through the Repository manager.[sociallocker]
Question.3 Name at least 5 different types of transformations used in
mapping design and state the use of each.?
Answer: Source Qualifier Source Qualifier represents all data queries from the
source, Expression = Expression performs simple calculations, Filter Filter serves
as a conditional filter, Lookup Lookup looks up values and passes to other
objects, Aggregator Aggregator performs aggregate calculations.
Question.4 How can a transformation be made reusable?
Answer: In the edit properties of any transformation there is a check box to make
it reusable, by checking that it becomes reusable. You can even create reusable
transformations in Transformation developer.
Question. 5 How are the sources and targets definitions imported in
informatica designer? How to create Target definition for flat files?
Answer: When you are in source analyzer there is a option in main menu to
Import the source from Database, Flat File, Cobol File & XML file, by selecting any
one of them you can import a source definition. When you are in Warehouse
Designer there is arp option in main menu to import the target from Database, XML
from File and XML from sources you can select any one of these.
There is no way to target definition as file in Informatica designer. So while creating
the target definition for a file in the warehouse designer it is created considering it
as a table, and then in the session properties of that mapping it is specified as file.

Question.6 Explain what is sql override for a source taLle in a mapping?

Answer: The Source Qualifier provides the SQL Query option to override the
default query. You can enter any SQL statement supported by your source database.
You might enter your own SELECT statement, or have the database perform
aggregate calculations, or call a stored procedure or stored function to read the
data and perform some tasks.
Question.7 What is lookup override?
Answer: Ails: This feature is similar to entering a custom query in a Source
Qualifier transformation. When entering a Lookup SQL Override, you can enter the
entire override, or generate and edit the default SQL statement.
The lookup query override can include WHERE clause.
Question.8 What are mapplets? How is it different from a Reusable
Transformation?
Answer: A mapplet is a reusable object that represents a set of transformations. It
allows you to reuse transformation logic and can contain as many transformations
as you need. You create mapplets in the Mapplet Designer.
Its different than a reusable transformation as it may contain a set of
transformations, while a reusable transformation is a single one.
Question.9 How to use an oracle sequence generator in a mapping?
Answer: We have to write a stored procedure, which can take the sequence name
as input and dynamically generates a nextval from that sequence. Then in the
mapping we can use that stored procedure through a procedure transformation.
Question. 10 How to create the source and target database connections in
server manager?
Answer: In the main menu of server manager there is menu Server
Configuration, in that there is the menu Databasesi connections. From here you
can create the Source and Target database connections.
Question. 11 Where are the source flat files kept before running the
session?
Answer: The source flat files can be kept in some folder on the Informatica server
or any ether machine, which is in its domain.
Question. 12 What are the oracle DML commands possible through an
update strategy?
Answer: dd_insert, dd_update, dd_delete & dd_reject.
Question. 13 How to update or delete the rows in a target, which do not
have key fields?
Answer: To Update a table that does not have any Keys we can do a SQL Override
of the Target Transformation by() specifying the WHERE conditions explicitly. Delete
cannot be done this way. In this case you have to specifically
mention the Key for Target table definition on the Target transformation in the
Warehouse Designer and delete the row using the Update Strategy transformation.

Question. 14 What is option by which we can run all the sessions in a

batch simultaneously?
Answer: In the batch edit box there is an opticn called concurrent. By checking
that all the sessions in that Batch will run concurrently.
Question. 15 Informatica settings are available in which file?
Answer: Informatica settings are available in a file pmdes!gn.ini in Windows
folder.
Question. 16 How can we join the records from two heterogeneous
sources in a mapping?
Answer: By using a joiner.
Question. 17. Difference between Connected & Unconnected look-up.
Answer: An unconnected Lookup transformation exists separate from the pipeline
in the mapping. You write anj expression using the :LKP reference qualifier to call
the lookup within another transformation. While the connected -lookup forms a part
of the whole flow of mapping.
Question. 18. Compare Router Vs Filter & Source Qualifier Vs Joiner.
Answer: A Router transformation has input ports and output ports. Input ports
reside in the input group, and output ports reside in the output groups. Here you
can test data based on one or more group filter conditions. But in filter you can filter
data based on one or more conditions before writing it to targets.
Question.19 What are Aggregator Transformation?
Answer: Aggregator transformation is an Active and Connected transformation.
This transformation is useful to perform calculations such as averages and sums
(mainly to perform calculations on multiple rows or groups).[/sociallocker]

Teradata Interview Questions and answers for

Experienced
Question.1 My table got locked during MLOAD due to a failed job. What
do I do to perform other operations on it?
Answer: Using RELEASE MLOAD. It removes access locks from the target tables in
Teradata. It must be entered from BTEQ and not from MultiLoad. To proceed, you
can do RELEASE MLOAD.
Question.2 How to find duplicates in a table?
Answer: Group by those fields and select id, count(*) from table group by id
having count (*) > 1. [sociallocker]
Question.3 How to you verify a complicated SQL?
Answer: I use explain statement to check if the query is doing what I wanted it to
do.
Question.4 Did u ever use UPPER Function?

Answer: UPPER Function is used to convert all characters in a column to the same
characters in upper case.
Question.5 What does a LOWER Function do?
Answer: LOWER function is used to convert all characters in a column to the
lower case characters.
Question.6 How do you see a DDL for an existing table?
Answer: By using show table command.
Question.7 Which is more efficient GROUP BY or DISTINCT to find
duplicates?
Answer: With more duplicates GROUP BY is more efficient, if only a few duplicates
exist DISTINCT is more efficient.
Question.8 Syntax for CASE WHEN statement?
Answer: CASE
value_expression_1
WHEN
value_expression_n
THEN
scalar_expression_n END;
Question.9 Whats the difference between TIMESTAMP (0) and TIMESTAMP
(6)?
Answer:
TIMESTAMP (0) is CHAR (19) and TIMESTAMP (6) is CHAR (26)
Everything is same except that TIMESTAMP (6) has microseconds too.
Question.10 How do you determine the number of sessions?
Answer:
Teradata performance and workload
Client platform type, performance and workload
Channel performance for channel attached systems
Network topology and performance for network attached systems.
Volume of data to be processed by the application.
Question.11 What is node? How many nodes and AMPs used in your
previous project?
Answer: Node is a database running in a server. We used 318 nodes and each
node has 2 to 4 AMPS.
Question.12 What is a clique?
Answer: Clique is a group of disk arrays physically cabled to a group of nodes.
Question.13 Interviewer explained about their project (Environment,
nature of work)?
Answer: Listen to them carefully so that at the end of the interview you can ask
questions about the project when you are given a chance to ask questions.
of the project.
Question.14

What is the difference between FastLoad and MultiLoad?

Answer: FastLoad uses multiple sessions to quickly load large amount of data on
empty table. MultiLoad is used for high-volume maintenance on tables and views.
It works with non-empty tables also. Maximum 5 tables can be used in MultiLoad.
Question.15 Have you used procedures?
Answer: No. I have not used procedures. But I have expertise knowledge writing
procedures. My company have not encouraged me to write procedures because it
becomes single AMP operation, as such uses lot of resources and expensive in terms
of resource and time.
Question.16 What is the purpose of indexes?
Answer: An index is a mechanism that can be used by the SQL query optimizer to
make table access more performant. Indexes enhance data access by providing a
more-or-less direct path to stored data and avoiding the necessity to perform full
table scans to locate the small number of rows you typically want to retrieve or
update.
Question.17 What is primary index and secondary index?
Answer:
Primary index is the mechanism for assigning a data row to an AMP
and a location on the AMPs disks. Indexes also used to access rows from a table
without having to search the entire table.
Secondary indexes enhance set selection by specifying access paths less frequently
used than the primary index path. Secondary indexes are also used to facilitate
aggregate operations. If a secondary index covers a query, then the Optimizer
determines that it would be less costly to accesses its rows directly rather than
using it to access the base table rows it points to. Sometimes multiple secondary
indexes with low individual selectivity can be overlapped and bit mapped to provide
enhanced
Question.18 Why primary and secondary index is used?
Answer: Refer answer from previous question.
Question.19 What are the things to considered while creating secondary
index?
Answer: Creating a secondary index causes Teradata to build a sub-table to
contain its index rows, thus adding another set of rows that requires updating each
time a table row is inserted, deleted, or updated. Secondary index sub-tables are
also duplicated whenever a table is defined with FALLBACK, so the maintenance
overhead is effectively doubled.[/sociallocker]

Informatica Interview Questions and answers

for experienced

Question.1 What is the difference between connected and unconnected

transformation?
Answer: Connected Transformation: Connected transformation is connected to
other transformations or directly to target table in the mapping. Unconnected
Transformation: An unconnected transformation is not connected to other
transformations in the mapping. It is called within another transformation, and
returns a value to that transformation.
Question.2 What are various types of Aggregation?
Answer:
Various types of aggregation are
SUM
AVG
vCOUNT
MAX
MIN
FIRST
LAST
MEDIAN
PERCENTILE
STDDEV
VARIANCE. [sociallocker]
Question.3 What are Aggregator Transformation?
Answer: Aggregator transformation is an Active and Connected transformation.
This transformation is useful to perform calculations such as averages and sums
(mainly to perform calculations on multiple rows or groups).
Question.4 What are Expression transformation?
Answer: Expression transformation is a Passive and Connected transformation.
This can be used to calculate values in a single row before writing to the target.
Question.5 What are Filter transformation?
Answer: Filter transformation is an Active and Connected transformation. This
can be used to filter rows in a mapping that do not meet the condition.
Question.6 What are Joiner transformation?
Answer: Joiner Transformation is an Active and Connected transformation. This
can be used to join two sources coming from two different locations or from same
location.

Question.7 Why we use lookup transformations?

Answer: Lookup Transformations can access data from relational tables that are
not sources in mapping.
Question.8 What are Normalizer transformation?
Answer: Normalizer Transformation is an Active and Connected transformation. It
is used mainly with COBOL sources where most of the time data is stored in
denormalized format. Also, Normalizer transformation can be used to create
multiple rows from a single row of data.
Question.9 What are Rank transformation?
Answer: Rank transformation is an Active and Connected transformation. It is
used to select the top or bottom rank of data.
Question.10 What are Router transformation?
Answer: Router transformationis an Active and Connected transformation. It is
similar to filter transformation. The only difference is, filter transformation drops the
data that do not meet the condition whereas router has an option to capture the
data that do not meet the condition. It is useful to test multiple conditions.
Question.11 What are Sorter transformation?
Answer: Sorter transformation is a Connected and an Active transformation. It
allows to sort data either in ascending or descending order according to a specified
field.
Question.12 Name four output files that information server creates
during session running?
Answer:
Session Log
Workflow Log
Errors Log
Badfile
Question.13 What is the difference between lookup cache and lookup
index?
Answer:
Look up Cache contains Index cache and data cache.
Index cache : Contains columns used in condition.
Question.14 What are the difference between static cache and dynamic
cache?
Answer: Dynamic cache decreases the performance in comparisons to static
cache.
Static cache do not see such things just insert data as many times as it is coming.
Question.15

Define maping and sessions?

Answer: Maping: It is a set of source and target definitions linked by

transformation objects that define the rules for transformation. Session : It is a set
of instructions that describe how and when to move data from source to targets.
Question.16 What is a command that used to run a batch?
Answer: pmcmd is used to start a batch.
Question.17 What is Datadriven?
Answer: The informatica server follows instructions coded into update strategy
transformations with in the session maping determine how to flag records for insert,
update, delete or reject.
Question.18 What is power center repository?
Answer:
The Power Center repository allows you to share metadata across
repositories to create a data mart domain.
Question.19 What is parameter file?
Answer: A parameter file is a file created by text editor such as word pad or
notepad. U can define the following values in parameter file.
Maping parameters
Maping variables
session parameters.[/sociallocker]

Informatica Interview Questions and Answers

Question.1 What is Data warehouse?
Answer: According to Bill Inmon, known as father of Data warehousing. A Data
warehouse is a subject oriented, integrated ,time variant, non volatile collection of
data in support of managements decision making process.
Question.2 What are the types of data warehouses?
Answer: There are three types of data warehouses
Enterprise Data Warehouse
ODS (operational data store)
Data Mart [sociallocker]
Question.3 What is Data mart?
Answer: A data mart is a subset of data warehouse that is designed for a particular
line of business, such as sales, marketing, or finance. In a dependent data mart,
data can be derived from an enterprise wide data warehouse. In an independent
data mart can be collected directly from sources.
Question.4 What is star schema?
Answer: A star schema is the simplest form of data warehouse schema that
consists of one or more dimensional and fact tables.

Question.5 What is snow flake schema?

Answer: A Snowflake schema is nothing but one Fact table which is connected to a
number of dimension tables, The snowflake and star schema are methods of storing
data which are multidimensional in nature.
Question.6 What are ETL Tools?
Answer: ETL Tools are stands for Extraction, Transformation, and Loading the data
into the data warehouse for decision making. ETL refers to the methods involved in
accessing and manipulating source data and loading it into target database.
Question.7 What are Dimensional table?
Answer: Dimension tables contain attributes that describe fact records in the fact
table.
Question.8 What is data Modelling?
Answer: Data Modeling is representing the real world set of data structures or
entities and their relationship in their of data models, required for a database.Data
Modelling consists of various types like
Conceptual data modeling
Logical data modeling
Physical data modeling
Enterprise data modeling
Relation data modeling
Dimensional data modeling.
Question.9 What is Surrogate key?
Answer: Surrogate key is a substitution for the natural primary key. It is just a
unique identifier or number of each row that can be used for the primary key to the
table.
Question.10 What is Data Mining?
Answer: A Data Mining is the process of analyzing data from different perspectives
and summarizing it into useful information.
Question.11 What is Operational Data Store?
Answer: A ODS is an operational data store which comes as a second layer in a
datawarehouse architecture. It has got the characteristics of both OLTP and DSS
systems.
Question.12 What is the Difference between OLTP and OLAP?
Answer: OLTP is nothing but OnLine Transaction Processing which contains a
normalisedtables
But OLAP(Online Analtical Programming) contains the history of OLTP data which is
non-volatile acts as a Decisions Support System.
Question.13 How many types of dimensions are available in Informatica?
Answer: There are three types of dimensions available are :
Junk dimension
Degenerative Dimension
Conformed Dimension

Question.14 What are the designer tools for creating tranformations?

Answer:
Mapping designer
Transformation developer
Mapplet designer
Question.15 What is the maplet?
Answer: Maplet is a set of transformations that you build in the maplet designer
and you can use in multiple mapings.
Question. 16 What is Session and Batches?
Answer: Session: A session is a set of commands that describes the server to move
data to the target.Batch: A Batch is set of tasks that may include one or more
numbar of tasks (sessions, ewent wait, email, command, etc).
Question.17 What are slowly changing dimensions?
Answer: Dimensions that change overtime are called Slowly Changing
Dimensions(SCD).
Slowly Changing Dimension-Type1 : Which has only current records.
Slowly Changing Dimension-Type2 : Which has current records + historical records.
Slowly Changing Dimension-Type3 : Which has current records + one previous
records.
Question.18 What are 2 modes of data movement in Informatica Server?
Answer: There are two modes of data movement are:
Normal Mode in which for every record a separate DML stmt will be prepared and
executed.
Bulk Mode in which for multiple records DML stmt will be preapred and executed
thus improves performance.
Question.19 What is the difference between Active and Passive
transformation?
Answer: Active Transformation:An active transformation can change the number of
rows that pass through it from source to target i.e it eliminates rows that do not
meet the
condition
in
transformation.Passive
Transformation:A
passive
transformation does not change the number of rows that pass through it i.e it
passes all rows through the transformation.[/sociallocker]

Teradata Interview Questions and answers

Question.1 What is the difference between FastLoad and MultiLoad?
Answer: FastLoad uses multiple sessions to quickly load large amount of data on
empty table. MultiLoad is used for high-volume maintenance on tables and views. It
works with non-empty tables also. Maximum 5 tables can be used in MultiLoad.
Question.2 Which is faster?
Answer: FastLoad.
Question.3 Difference between Inner join and outer join?

Answer: An inner join gets data from both tables where the specified data exists in
both tables.
An outer join gets data from the source table at all times, and returns data from the
outer joined table ONLY if it matches the criteria.[sociallocker]
Question.4 What is multi Insert?
Answer: Inserting data records into the table using multiple insert statements.
Putting a semi colon in front of the key word INSERT in the next statement rather
than terminating the first statement with a semi colon achieves it.
Insert into Sales select * from customer
Insert into Loan select * from customer;
Question.5 Is multi insert ANSI standard?
Answer: No.
Question.6 How do you create a table with an existing structure of
another table with data and with no data?
Answer: Create table Customer dummy as Customer with data / with no data;
Question.7 What is the opening step in Basic Teradata Query script?
Answer: Logon tdipid/username, password.
Question.8 You are calling a Bteq script, which drops a table and creates a
table. It will throw an error if the table does not exist. How can you do it
without throwing the error?
Answer: You can it by setting error level to zero before dropping and resetting the
error level to 8 after dropping.
Question.9 ERRORLEVEL (3807)
Answer: SEVERITY 8;
Question.10 Can you FastExport a field, which is primary key by putting
equality on that key?
Answer: No.
Question.11 Did you write stored procedures in Teradata?
Answer: No, because they become a single amp operation and my company didnt
encourage that.
Question.12 What is the use of having indexs on table?
Answer: For faster record search.
Question.13 Did you use Query man or SQL assistance?
Answer: SQL assistant 6.1
Question.14. I am updating a table in Bteq. It has to update a large
number of rows, so its really slow. What do you suggest?
Answer: In Teradata it is not recommended to update more than 1 million rows due
to journal space problems, if it is less than that and its slow in the Bteq, you might
want to add collect statistics statement before the update statement.
Question.15 Is it necessary to add? QUIT statement after a Bteq query
when I am calling it in a Unix environment?

Answer: Not necessary but it is good to add a QUIT statement after a query.
Question.16 There is a column with date in it. If I want to get just month
how It can be done? Can I use sub string?
Answer: Sub string is used with char fields. So it cannot be used. To extract month
from a date column, ex select extract (month from ). Same thing for year or day.Or
hour or minutes if its a time stamp (select extract (minute from column name).
Question.17 Whats the syntax of sub string?
Answer: SUBSTRING (string_expression, n1 [n2])
Question.18 Did you use CASE WHEN statement. Can you tell us a little
about it?
Answer: Yes. When a case has to be selected depending upon the value of the
expression.
Question.19 While creating table my DBA has FALLBACK or NO FALLBACK
in his DDL. What is that?
Answer: FALLBACK requests that a second copy of each row inserted into a table
be stored on another AMP in the same cluster. This is done when AMP goes down or
disk fails.[/sociallocker]