How Long Does it Take to learn Datastage for ETL project

ingcariere · Post by **ingcariere** » Tue Apr 02, 2013 2:40 am

Hi,
Im new in Datastage, I want know how much time in general I need to learn Datastage for an ETL project, one week ? a month ? a year ?

chulett · Post by **chulett** » Tue Apr 02, 2013 6:55 am

Welcome.

That's a pretty wide open question and can depend quite a bit on the person. It can also depend on how much "computer" experience (programming, UNIX, scripting, etc) you've had and if you've used a different ETL tool before. I'd say in general that it doesn't take much time to "learn" an ETL tool, DataStage included. You can get a good foundation in a week with the proper setting, say like an official class. And then you can spend the rest of your career learning new or subtle things.

Assuming (again) that 'proper setting' with a mentor and actual work to do, you'll know if someone is picking things up in... oh, a month or two. Left to ones own devices? Hard to say in that case.

My two cents.

chandra.shekhar@tcs.com · Tue Apr 02, 2013 8:04 am

As Ray said, there's no straight forward answer to that.
I think it takes atleast 4-5 months to have good knowledge about datastage. Obviously practical knowledge is a must.
It also depends upon the grasping power of the person.
I have 4 years exp in datastage and I still consider myself in the learning phase.

FranklinE · Post by **FranklinE** » Tue Apr 02, 2013 10:19 am

I had the privilege of taking the advanced course from Ray Daignault. As a rule of thumb, I take his word for it: one should have at least six months of full-time experience with DS before taking the advanced course.

The tool is flexible and powerful. I don't expect to know anything close to everything... but I'm having a very good time trying to get there.

ray.wurlod · Post by **ray.wurlod** » Tue Apr 02, 2013 3:22 pm

I've been working with DataStage since 1995 and I'm still learning things about it.

chulett · Post by **chulett** » Tue Apr 02, 2013 3:26 pm

I haven't touched it for 3 years and I'm still learning new things.

eostic · Post by **eostic** » Tue Apr 02, 2013 3:43 pm

16+ years with it and learning new things every day...

I like what Craig said up above. You can be pretty "dangerous" with it in just a couple of days, or a week...but it depends on so many other things...the sources and targets you have, the kinds of transformations you need to do, the structures of the data you are reading and writing, their datatypes, the performance requirements (or not), your background, etc. etc. etc.

Dive in and have fun...and find a mentor. ...and don't hesitate to "play". Build test jobs all the time...test your theories and those you read about here and elsewhere....break down your larger jobs that aren't working into smaller ones and understand how each piece works.....etc.

Ernie

lstsaur · Post by **lstsaur** » Tue Apr 02, 2013 3:46 pm

I haven't touched it for 3 years too, but I am forgetting things rapidly ;-(.