Integration Process Overview in odi

Integration Process Overview

The integration process depends strongly on the strategy being used.
The following elements are used in the integration process:

• An integration table (also known as the flow table) is sometimes needed to stage data after all staging area transformation are made. This loading table is named after the target table, prefixed with I$. This integration table is the image of the target table with extra fields required for the strategy to be implemented. The data in this table is flagged, transformed or checked before being integrated into the target table.
  
• The source and/or loading tables (created by the LKM). The integration process loads data from these tables into the integration table or directly into the target tables.
  
• Check Knowledge Module. The IKM may initiate a flow check phase to check the data in the integration table against some of the constraints of the target table. Invalid data is removed from the integration table (removed from the flow).
  
• Interface metadata, such as Insert, Update, UD1, etc., or model metadata such as the Slowly Changing Dimension behavior are used at integration phase to parameterize column-level behavior in the integration strategies.
  

A typical integration process works in the following way:

1. Create a temporary integration table if needed. For example, an update flag taking value I or U to identify which of the rows are to be inserted or updated.
   
2. Load data from the source and loading tables into this integration table, executing those of the transformations (joins, filters, mapping) specified on the staging area.
   
3. Perform some transformation on the integration table to implement the integration strategy. For example, compare the content of the integration table with the target table to set the update flag.
   
4. Modify the content Load data from the integration table into the target table.