DataStage is a very popular ETL tool that is currently available on the market. In this article, I’ll share a collection of very useful questions and answers for IBM Datastage interviews. Going over the Datastage interview questions below can help you ace the interview. We have provided detailed answers to these Interview Questions that will be beneficial to both new and experienced professionals.
The most frequent asked interview questions
1) What exactly is Datastage?
Answer: Datastage is an ETL tool provided by IBM that uses a graphical user interface to design data integration solutions. This was the first ETL tool to introduce the concept of parallelism. It is available in three different editions.
- Server Edition
- Enterprise Edition
- MVS Edition
2) What are the main features of Datastage?
Answer:
- It is the IBM Infosphere information server’s data integration component.
- It is a graphical user interface (GUI) tool. We simply drag and drop the Datastage objects to convert them to Datastage code.
- It is used to carry out ETL operations (Extract, Transform, Load)
- It allows you to connect to multiple sources and targets at the same time.
- It includes partitioning and parallel processing techniques that allow Datastage jobs to process large amounts of data much faster.
- It supports enterprise-level connectivity.
3) What are the main applications of the Datastage tool?
Answer: Datastage is an ETL tool used primarily for extracting data from source systems, transforming it, and finally loading it into target systems.
4) What is a data source system?
Answer: It could be a database table, a flat file, or even a third-party application like PeopleSoft.
5) Which interface will you be working on as a developer?
Answer: As Datastage developers, we work on the Datastage client interface, which is known as a Datastage designer and requires installation on the local system. It is linked to the Datastage server in the backend.
6) What are the various common services available in Datastage?
Answer:
- Services for Metadata
- Service deployment that is unified
- Services for security
- Services for looping and reporting
7) How do you get started on a Datastage project?
Answer: The first step is to set up a Datastage job on the Datastage server. The Datastage project contains all of the Datastage objects that we create. A Datastage project is a server-side environment for jobs, tables, definitions, and routines. A Datastage project is a server-side environment for jobs, tables, definitions, and routines.
8) What exactly is a DataStage job?
Answer: The Datastage job is nothing more than the DataStage code that we write as developers. It consists of various stages that are linked together to define data and process flow. Stages are simply the functionalities that are implemented.
9) Can you explain DataStage sequences?
Answer: A DataStage sequence is a logical flow that connects DataStage jobs.
10) Where are the Datastage jobs saved?
Answer: Datastage jobs are saved in the repository. We have several folders where we can save Datastage jobs.
11) What steps are required to create a simple basic Datastage job?
Answer: Click the File -> Save As… button. Click New -> Parallel Job and then OK. A new job window will appear. We can put together different stages and define the data flow between them in this Parallel job. An ETL job is the most basic DataStage job. We must first extract the data from the source system, which can be either a file or a database table because my source system can be either a database table or a file.
12) Describe the various sorting methods available in Datastage.
Answer: There are two approaches available:
- Sorting links
- Built-in Datastage Sort
13) What are Datastage routines? Include a variety of routines.
Answer: The DS manager defines a set of functions known as a routine. It is powered by the transformer stage. Routines are classified into three types:
- Parallel routines
- Mainframe routines
- Server routines
14) In DataStage, how do you remove duplicate values?
Answer: There are two approaches to dealing with duplicate values:
- To get rid of duplicates, we can use the remove duplicate stage.
- To remove duplicates, we can use the Sort stage. Allow duplicates is a property of the sorting stage. When we set this property to false, we will not get duplicate values in the sort output.
15) What types of views are available in a Datastage director?
Answer: In the Datastage director, there are three types of views available.
- Log view
- Status view
- Job view
16) What are the various container types available in Datastage?
Answer:
- Local container
- Shared container
17) What are the various job types in Datastage?
Answer:
- Server jobs (They run in a sequential manner)
- Parallel jobs (They get executed in a parallel way)
18) What exactly is the purpose of the Datastage director?
Answer: We can use the Datastage director to schedule a job, validate it, execute it, and monitor it.
19) What will you do if a job fails in the middle of a batch and you want to restart the batch from that particular job rather than from the beginning?
Answer: In Datastage, there is a job sequence option called ‘Add checkpoints so the sequence can be restarted on failure.’ If we check this box, we can rerun the job sequence from the point where it failed.
20) What is the procedure for importing and exporting Datastage jobs?
Answer: For this, see the command-line functions listed below.
- Import: dsimport.exe
- Export: dsexport.exe
21) On which interface will you be working as a developer?
Answer: As a Datastage developer, we work on the Datastage client interface, which is known as a Datastage designer and must be installed on the local system. It’s linked to the Datastage server in the backend.
22) How will you do it if you want to use the same piece of code in multiple jobs?
Answer: This can be accomplished by utilizing shared containers. For reusability, we have shared containers. A shared container is a reusable job component made up of stages and links. In different Datastage jobs, we can call a shared container.
Conclusion
You should have a great understanding of the Datastage architecture, its main features, and how it differs from other popular ETL tools. You should also be familiar with the various stages and their applications, as well as the end-to-end process of creating and running a Datastage job.
