Abinitio Interview Questions

1) What is Ab initio?

“Abinitio” is a latin word meaning “from the beginning.” Abinitio is a tool used to extract, transform and load data. It is also used for data analysis, data manipulation, batch processing, and graphical user interface based parallel processing.

2) Explain what is the architecture of Ab initio?

Architecture of Ab initio includes

• GDE (Graphical Development Environment)
• Co-operating System
• Enterprise meta-environment (EME)
• Conduct-IT

3) Mention what is the role of Co-operating system in Abinitio?

The Ab initio co-operating system provide features like

• Manage and run Abinitio graph and control the ETL processes 
• Provide Abinitio extensions to the operating system
• ETL processes monitoring and debugging
•  Meta-data management and interaction with the EME

4) How to add default rules in transformer?

• Open Add Default Rules dialog box.
•  Select Match Names – to match the names that generates a set of rules to copy input fields to out fields with same name
• Use Wildcard(. *) Rule : This rule generates only one rule to copy input fields to output fields with the same name
• If not displayed – display the Transform Editor Grid
• Click the Business Rule tab . Select Edit?Add Default Rules
  Nothing is needed to write in the reformat .xfr file in case of reformat, if there is no need to use any real transform other than reducing the set of fields.

5) Explain what does dependency analysis mean in Abinitio?

In Abinitio, dependency analysis is a process through which the EME examines a project entirely and traces how data is transferred and transformed- from component-to-component, field-by-field, within and between graphs.

6) What kind of layouts does Abinitio support?

•  Abinitio supports serial and parallel layouts.
  
  
• A graph layout supports both serial and parallel layouts at a time.
  
  
• The parallel layout depends on the degree of the data parallelism
  
  
•  A multi-file system is a 4-way parallel system
  
  
• A component in a graph system can run 4-way parallel system.

7) Explain how Abinitio EME is segregated?

Abinitio is logically divided into two segments

• Data Integration Portion
• User Interface ( Access to the meta-data information)

8) List out the file extensions used in Abinitio?

The file extensions used in Abinitio are

·          .mp: It stores Abinitio graph or graph component

·          .mpc: Custom component or program

·          .mdc: Dataset or custom data-set component

·          .dml: Data manipulation language file or record type definition

·          .xfr: Transform function file

·          .dat: Data file (multifile or serial file)

9) Mention what are the different types of parallelism used in Abinitio?

Different types of parallelism used in Abinitio includes

• Component parallelism: A graph with multiple processes executing simultaneously on separate data uses parallelism
• Data parallelism: A graph that works with data divided into segments and operates on each segments respectively, uses data parallelism.
• Pipeline parallelism: A graph that deals with multiple components executing simultaneously on the same data uses pipeline parallelism. Each component in the pipeline read continuously from the upstream components, processes data and writes to downstream components.  Both components can operate in parallel.

10) Explain what is SANDBOX?

A SANDBOX is referred for the collection of graphs and related files that are saved in a single directory tree and behaves as a group for the purposes of navigation, version control, and migration.

11) Explain what is Sort Component in Abinitio?

The Sort Component in Abinitio re-orders the data. It comprises of two parameters “Key” and “Max-core”.

• Key: It is one of the parameters for sort component which determines the collation order.
• Max-core: This parameter controls how often the sort component dumps data from memory to disk.

12) What is a Rollup component? Explain about it.

·         Rollup component allows the users to group the records on certain field values.

·         It is a multi stage function and contains

·         Initialize 2. Rollup 3. Finalize functions which are mandatory

·         To counts of a particular group Rollup needs a temporary variable

·         The initialize function is invoked first for each group

·         Rollup is called for each of the records in the group.

·         The finally function calls only once at the end of last rollup call.