DSXchange

I am relatively new to Datastage. Can anybody get some tricky questions for datastage asked during the interviews??? Also I would like to know where to find the answers/solutions to those questions. I would be thankful, if somebody gives information about the other sources apart from this forum.

Thanks
Sam

Are you planning to be the interviewer or the interviewee?

One other source for information is the datastage-users moderated mailing list, hosted by Clif Oliver. Go to www.oliver.com and follow the links to the DataStage discussion list, where instructions on how to subscribe will be found.

Best of all is to get yourself enrolled on some DataStage training classes, which provide hands-on learning and lots of tips and tricks from experienced instructors.

Ray, Thanks for your reply.

I am planning to be the interviewee for a junior position with a Pharmaceutical company. What kind of questions you would ask if you are interviewing a Datastage programmer for some kind of junior position ???? What area I should be very thorough, considering this as a junior position ???

I would appreciate your input.

Thanks

Without detailing specific questions, which would vary according to the interview situation, I would be looking for evidence of the following (I would assume familiarity with the Windows environment):
attention to detail
capability with SQL concepts
desire to learn
ability to relate task to business requirements
working successfully in a multidisciplinary team environment
broad brush understanding of DW and ETL concepts
proven capacity to see task through to completion
logical thought processes
ability to design appropriate testing strategies/data
Experience with DataStage not essential, as training can be provided, but a bonus if you have it, or with UniVerse BASIC.

If you'd like me to expand on any of these, please post again.
Caveat: these are my ideas only and do not represent the ideas of anyone else. I have never been in the position of hiring, nor of advising hirers, in the DataStage environment. These ideas are, therefore, entirely theoretical. (On the other hand, I was a vocational psychologist in a previous career.)

Ray,
I would like you to expand on following topics

- broad brush understanding of DW and ETL concepts
- ability to design appropriate testing strategies/data

I didn't have any training in Datastage but have gone thru Datastage tutorial on my own. Some of the things are not covered or exlained in tutorial. I would like to know

-when and how to use a OCIstage, Hashstage
-how to write a function, procedure,routines in Datastage (if you have some readymade examples)
-How to call an activex control which I have written in some other language and write a wrapper. I don't understand how and why to write a wrapper around it.(can you please throw some light on it)
-How to write and call after and before stage subroutine
-how to call/write a shell script and call it in Datastage jobs

( if you have some examples handy, can you pass it on to me)

Thanks for the help
Sam

Broad brush understanding of DW concepts:
why the dimensional model is preferred to entity-relationship model (query performance)
implementing dimensional model (star schema)
theory of slowly changing dimensions (types 1, 2 and 3)
that "cube" is shorthand terminology for "n-dimensional"
no "transactions" in DW database
time dimension
longevity of DW database

Broad brush understanding of ETL concepts:
batch processing (performance measure is elapsed time for load)
row-at-a-time processing
keep as much as possible in memory
no blocking elements unless necessary (aggregation, restartability)
importance of metadata (of all kinds)
programming is communication with future programmers

Ability to design appropriate testing strategies/data:
(cynicism 101) =;^)
boundary conditions
data type (metadata) mismatches
other data errors (e.g. sizing errors)
how to go about diagnosis, including
viewing data from source
reading ALL the info in error messages, understanding it
stage tracing
using debugger to verify logic and inspect actual data

Providing the remainder of the things you want to know is how I make my living. Most of those questions form the corpus of much of the "official" training classes, which can be had from Ascential or from resellers.
If you would like me to construct customised training for you, I would be happy to quote to do so. However, there is certainly no scope (or space) to provide this knowledge via this Forum.

Hi Sam,

I am also the new learner of the datastage. I am looking at tutorial for datastage, could you please provide me the tutorial documentaion, and also the procedures you followed while learning.

Appreciate your help,
Bram

If you have DataStage you have the Tutorial.

Everybody learns differently, and in different circumstances, so I doubt that the procedures I followed while learning would benefit you terribly much. For example, my initial exposure to DataStage was as an employee of the vendor. You clearly do not fall into that category. I had a lot of prior experience with UniVerse and related databases; this is not your skill set either.

For the rest, it's putting in the study time. Reading the readme files for each new release, trying things out (experimenting), communicating with others (do you have a local user group?), and so on.

You may also discuss with Ascential regarding their training courses that are available for a price.

Hey, it's not that expensive when you get an entry job, eh?