Design Approach to update Bigger tables

One of the issue we come across during the ETL design is "Update Large Tables".  This is a very common ETL scenarion especially when you treat with large volume of data like loading an SCD Type 2 dimension table.  Here in this article lets discuss an approach to update Larger tables using Informatica Mapping.

High level Design Approach.

1. Use Database JOIN to identify the records to be updated.
2. Insert the records into TEMP table, which is identified for UPDATE.
3. Use post session SQL to update the target table.

Design Assumption.

1. Source and Target tables are relational table.
2. Both source and target table is on the same schema.
3. Tables are accessible using a single database user. 

Informatica Implementation.

For the demonstration purpose lets consider the Customer Dimension table load T_DIM_CUST, which has 100 M records. Each load we are expecting to update 100 K Records records in the Dimension table.

Lets start with the mapping building. As the first step, lets OUTER Join the source table CUST_STAGE and target table T_DIM_CUST. Use the SQL below as the SQL override in source qualifier. 

SELECT
--Columns From Source Tables
CUST_STAGE.CUST_ID,
CUST_STAGE.CUST_NAME,
CUST_STAGE.ADDRESS1,
CUST_STAGE.ADDRESS2,
CUST_STAGE.CITY,
CUST_STAGE.STATE,
CUST_STAGE.ZIP,
...
--Columns from Target Tables.
--If any column has NULL value, record to be set as INSERT else UPDATE
T_DIM_CUST.CUST_ID,
T_DIM_CUST.AS_OF_START_DT,
T_DIM_CUST.AS_OF_END_DT
FROM CUST_STAGE
--Outer Join is Used
LEFT OUTER JOIN T_DIM_CUST
ON CUST_STAGE.CUST_ID = T_DIM_CUST.CUST_ID
AND T_DIM_CUST.AS_OF_END_DT = TO_DATE('12-31-4000','MM-DD-YYYY')

Now using a Router Transformation, route the records to INSERT/UPDATE path. Records identified as INSERT will be mapped to T_DIM_CUST and identified as UPDATE will be mapped to T_DIM_CUST_TEMP. Use T_DIM_CUST_CUST_ID, which is the column from the target table to identify the records to be inserted/updated. Below is the Router Group Filter Condition and you can see how the mapping looks like in the below image.

INSERT : IIF(ISNULL( T_DIM_CUST_CUST_ID ), TRUE, FALSE)

UPDATE : IIF(NOT ISNULL( T_DIM_CUST_CUST_ID ), TRUE, FALSE)

Now the mapping development is complete,  during the session configuration process, add the below SQL as part of the Post session SQL statement as shown below. This correlated update SQL will update the records in T_DIM_CUST table with the values from T_DIM_CUST_TEMP.

UPDATE T_DIM_CUST SET
  (T_DIM_CUST.AS_OF_END_DT,T_DIM_CUST.UPDATE_DT) =
  (SELECT T_DIM_CUST_TEMP.AS_OF_END_DT,T_DIM_CUST_TEMP.UPDATE_DT
  FROM T_DIM_CUST_TEMP
  WHERE T_DIM_CUST_TEMP.CUST_ID = T_DIM_CUST.CUST_ID
  AND T_DIM_CUST.AS_OF_END_DT   = TO_DATE('12-31-4000','MM-DD-YYYY'))
WHERE EXISTS
  (SELECT 1
  FROM T_DIM_CUST_TEMP
  WHERE T_DIM_CUST_TEMP.CUST_ID = T_DIM_CUST.CUST_ID
  AND T_DIM_CUST.AS_OF_END_DT   = TO_DATE('12-31-4000','MM-DD-YYYY'))

That is all we need... Hope you enjoyed this design technique. Please let us know if you have any difficulties in implementing this technique.