v7.1 vs v7.6

[sankarsadasivan]

Hi

We are currently planning to develop a project in Datastage Enterprise edition. We have got licence for 7.1 and expecting 7.6 in few weeks.

1)Just wanted to know what is new 7.6.

2)And if we develop our project now in v7.1 will it be compatible in 7.6( I guess it would be)

3)Are there some major enhancements which are available in 7.6 that we would miss if we go for 7.1 now. In that case we are planning to postpone the project for few weeks and wait for 7.6.

Kindly point out to any threads already disccused here, in this regard.

Many thanks and have a good weekend

Cheers,
Sankar

[ray.wurlod]

As far as I am aware there is no such version as 7.6. Maybe the news hasn't reached this corner of the globe yet.

The next version will be either 8.0 or 8.1 and is a radical re-design. Search for "Hawk" both here and at IBM web site.

[kumar_s]

Hope you are not rounding 7.5.1a

[chulett]

I was under the impression that the most recent version is either 7.5.1A or 7.5.2 depending on your platform. Never heard of 7.6 either unless it is in the pipeline. That being said, the versions I mentioned are available now so I see no reason to start with 7.1.

Regardless, there are a substantial number of improvements available in 7.5.1A over 7.1. ADN used to have the "What's new in 7.5.1A" pdf posted on their site but since ADN no longer exists it's not readily available for download. Perhaps someone could be enticed into emailing it to you.

That being said, I don't see a major issue with starting with 7.1 if you insist on it. I don't believe that you'll get far enough in your project in 'a few weeks' to make the lack of the features in 7.5.x an issue. Now, if those few weeks stretch out longer, then it may become an issue.

Again, with 7.5.x available now I see absolutely no reason to start with 7.1 - and whomever supplied you with that as a starting license at this date is actually doing you a disservice. All IMHO, of course.

[ray.wurlod]

Could be one of those "trick" interview questions...

[sankarsadasivan]

well, it was a typo, i meant 7.5.

We have 7.1 as of now, and we are getting our new box and s/w installed only after 2 weeks. Till then we have to wait.

Ray- It was not an interview question.

If any of you have any information, let me know.

Thanks

[dsusr]

[quote="sankarsadasivan"]well, it was a typo, i meant 7.5.

We have 7.1 as of now, and we are getting our new box and s/w installed only after 2 weeks. Till then we have to wait.

Ray- It was not an interview question.

If any of you have any information, let me know.

Thanks[/quote]

there are some issues within different versions of DataStage but most of them are forward compatible but yes there are some changes like transformer performance has improved from 7.1 to 7.5.

But I feel there is nothing major that you will miss out

[sankarsadasivan]

Well, we got the information, am posting it down, so that it can be of help to others

What's New In This Release
==========================

General Enhancements
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mobile Director (available on RTI install disk)
-----------------------------------------------
The new RTI Mobile Director is a PocketPC lightweight client application
that provides mobile users with Director type job control functionality
- ability to start and stop DataStage jobs, monitor job status, check
logs, and restart jobs remotely. It is based on the WebServices Job
Control functionality developed for the RTI Server product.

New Stored Procedure Stage
--------------------------
A new stored procedure stage allows users to easily use Oracle stored
procedures written in PL/SQL via OCI. The Stored Procedure Stage
supports input and output parameters making it easier to get information
back from a stored procedure. It can return a result set via output
parameters and can return more than one row if the procedure uses
cursors. The stage can also execute a stored function and returns status
information from the procedure.

HTML Job Reporting from the Designer
------------------------------------
A detailed printable HTML format job report can be generated for the
currently open job or shared container. The report can be produced using
a new menu option in the Designer or from the command line interface
(dsdesign). The final HTML report can be customised by applying
different XSL stylesheets to the generated XML file.

Changes to File & Directory Browser Form
----------------------------------------
The old style File & Directory browser form has been replaced with one
modelled on the standard Windows 2K browser. The new browser provides
enhanced functionality on directory navigation (tree-oriented) and file
selection, it has filtering as well as saving and restoring capabilities
for the last viewed file list.

Allow job level enablement/disablement of operational Meta data
---------------------------------------------------------------
Control over the generation of the operational metadata has been
extended to allow enabling/disabling at the job level, which overrides
the current project settings from the Administrator. This option is
available from the Job Options dialog (General tab) and from a new
command line sub-option (-opmetadata <true | false>) when running a job
using the dsjob command-line tool.

Ability to globally set Annotation properties
---------------------------------------------
The Annotation properties dialog is presented in the Tools ' Options
dialog and the settings are saved in the registry per user. The
Annotation stage always defaults to the saved settings.

Ability to unset Environment Variables when a Job Runs ($UNSET)
---------------------------------------------------------------
A special value $UNSET was introduced where there is a need for a user
defined env variable to explicitly unset the Unix env variable to
indicate false.
A dialog that provides information about what all the special env var
values are and what they are for is available by double-clicking at:
- Job properties dialog, Parameters tab, when editing the Default
Value cell for a job parameter defined as an env var.
- Admin client, Environment dialog, when editing a Value cell.

Transformer "Cancel" operation
------------------------------
If the Cancel button or <Esc> key are pressed from the main Transformer
dialog and changes have been made, then a confirmation message box is
displayed, to check that the user wants to quit without saving the
changes. If no changes have been made, no confirmation message is
displayed.

DSjob is now installed with DS client installation
--------------------------------------------------
The dsjob command-line utility is now installed as part of the DS client
installation. This will enable customers in Unix server environments to
control jobs from Windows DS client machines.

Multi-Client Manager
--------------------
The previously unsupported "Client Switcher" tool has been enhanced and
integrated into the DataStage client. This tool allows users to install
and switch between multiple different versions of the client. Switching
between them also changes the desktop shortcuts and the Start Menu group
to point to another installed DataStage client.

Updating Client Licenses without the need to re-install
-------------------------------------------------------
Client licenses will now be upgradeable from within the Administrator
client and these licenses can be optionally distributed to all
connecting client machines via the DataStage server. New installation
options to upgrade the client license include:
-Upgrade the local client license
-Upgrade the license based on a license upgrade available on the
connected server.
-Enable automatic upgrade of the license when connecting to a server
(when a client license upgrade has been done within the domain).

Ascential Branding Bar available in Manager and Director
--------------------------------------------------------
The Ascential Branding Bar, so far available in the Designer above the
main menu, has been added for consistency to the Manager and Director.
The Branding bar can be switched on/off based on a user option.

Standard Edition
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Job Sequencer
-------------
A number of enhancements have been made to the Job Sequencer at this
release:

- Terminate Activity
A new Terminator Stage has been added to provide better control of how
the sequence is terminated once an error/abort is experienced.

- Multi-job Compile Support
The multi-job compile tool has been enhanced to support compilation of
job sequences.

- Looping Support
Two new activity types, LoopStart and EndLoop were added to support
looping operations.
The LoopStart defines the loop conditions either:
- For "firstnum" to "lastnum" Step "increment"
- For each in "delimited"
The EndLoop is equivalent of "Until exitcondition=true Next Counter".
Loops can be nested.

- Extra Activity variables
The set of variables that are available for access after an Activity has
been executed has been extended.

- Expression Support
BASIC-like expression syntax has been expanded and is now allowed in
most job sequence activities. Context-menu help is available when
editing expressions.

- Extra sequence Logging Options
Additional information messages are recorded directly in the sequence's
log:
"Log warnings after activities that finish with status other than OK"
"Log report messages after each job run"
To support these:
a) Additional job properties options are available under the General tab
for job sequences.
b) A new tab "Sequences" is available on the Project Properties dialog
of the Admin Client, to set the defaults for the new job-level options.

- Job Sequences can now been saved as Job templates

- User Variable Stage
A new "User Variable" stage allows the user to define and set global
variables within a sequence that have full expression capability and can
be used to any downstream activity in the sequence.

- Additions to Notify Stage
The Notification Activity can now send attachments. Multiple attachments
are also supported. All fields may include parameters, except the email
body.

- Additions to WaitForFile Stage
The WaitForFile Activity can now specify unlimited wait or can send a
STOP request after a specified period of length time for a file to
appear or disappear. The filename can now be a parameter.

Enterprise Edition
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Complex Flat File Stage
-----------------------
A new Parallel Complex Flat File stage has been added to read or write
files that contain complex structures (for example groups, arrays,
redefines, occurs depending on, etc.). Arrays from complex sources can
be passed as-is or optionally flattened or normalized.

Parallel Job Runtime Message Handling
-------------------------------------
When DataStage parallel jobs are run they can generate a large number of
messages that are logged and may be viewed in the Director client.
Message Handlers allow the user to customise the severity of individual
messages and can be applied at project or job level. Messages can be
suppressed from the log (Information and Warning messages only),
promoted (from Information to Warning) or demoted (from Warning to
Information). A message handler management tool (available from DS
Manager and Director) provides options to edit, add or delete message
handlers. A new Director option allows message handling to be
enabled/disabled for the current job.

Changes to Parallel Job Lookup Stage editor
-------------------------------------------
The previous Lookup stage editor is replaced with a Transformer-like
editor in order to improve usability and available functionality for
lookup.
The new stage editor provides:
- A Transformer-like editor with Lookup functionality (Support of
2 output links).
- Support of conditional lookup functionality by creating and editing a
Condition expression on an input reference link.
This allows the user to control whether the lookup should occur and
also what will happen if the condition fails.
- Non-Unique key name lookup is achieved by making a drag-drop
facility available in the Key expression of the reference column.
Key names no longer have to be the same as the lookup reference key.

Large Number of Columns Support
-------------------------------
New column selection button is available for repeatable properties that
require column names.

Visual Cues in Designer - Design time job validation
----------------------------------------------------
For parallel jobs (including parallel shared containers) and job
sequences, errors that would occur during compilation are optionally
presented on the canvas without requiring the user to explicitly compile
the job. If there are potential problems with the stage that would cause
a compilation error, a warning triangle icon (Visual Cue) is shown on
the top of the stage. When the user hovers the mouse over a stage with a
Visual Cue, a tool tip is displayed. The Visual Cues can be turned off
via a toolbar button (a 'tick' image).

Platform based conditional Display of parallel job DB stages.
-------------------------------------------------------------
Parallel job Database stages now support a "PlatformType" property which
contains a list of supported platforms. Therefore when the platform is
not supported these stage types are still installed but do not appear in
the repository tree, and if there is a palette icon for them this is
disabled.

Support for Multi-node import in Parallel Job Sequential File stage
-------------------------------------------------------------------
The parallel job Sequential File stage is enhanced with a new multi-node
option which allows different physical nodes to read the same flat file
during import. This reduces the I/O contention on a file and thus can
improve job performance.

Additional properties for Parallel Job Stages
------------------------------------------------------------
- File Name Column (optional) - adds a column to the stage output that
contains the name of the file that the record is sourced from.
Available on Sequential File and File Set Stages.

- Source Name Column (optional) - adds a column to the stage output that
contains the name of the source that the record is sourced from.
Available on External Source Stage.

- Row Number Column (optional) - adds a column to the stage output that
contains the row number of the record.
Available on Sequential File, File Set and External Source Stages.

- Read First Rows (optional) - constrains the stage to only read the
specified number of rows from each file.
Available on Sequential File stage.

- First Line is Column Names (mandatory) - on reading this tells the
stage to ignore the first line since it contains column names. On
writing it causes the first line written to be the column names.
Available on Sequential File Stage.

ViewData functionality on Source & Target custom stages
-------------------------------------------------------
- View data support was added to custom parallel stages for both source
& targets.
- "Show File" has been replaced with "View Data" for Parallel job
Sequential File & File Set stages.

New Parallel Job Advanced Developer's Guide
-------------------------------------------
A new Parallel Job Advanced Developer's Guide gives DataStage Enterprise
Edition users information on efficient job design, stage usage,
performance tuning, and more. It also documents all of the parallel
environment variables available for use.

What's New In This Release (MVS)
================================

DB2 Bulk Load of Delimited Flat Files
-------------------------------------
The DB2 Load Ready Flat File stage has been extended to
support writing data to delimited flat files.
A new Format tab has been added to the Stage page,
which allows you to specify delimiter information
for the target file.

Extended NULL Indicator Support
-------------------------------
This release provides greater flexibility in specifying
the location and character value used for null indicators.
The Project Properties and Job Properties dialog boxes now
have a Flat File NULL area where you can select whether
NULL indicators appear before or after a column. You can
also specify the character value used to indicate both
nullability and non-NULL columns in mainframe flat files.

End-of-Data Row in IMS Stages
-----------------------------
The IMS stage now includes the option to add an end-of-
data indicator after the last row is processed on the
output link.

*************************** End of What's New In This Release ************

[Andet]

some changes like transformer erformance has improved from 7.1 to 7.5.

HA!

Ande