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Set up Informatica PowerCenter

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TL;DR

Export your PowerCenter repository to XML and package the files for the Atlan connector

Prepare the files the Informatica PowerCenter connector needs: the repository XML exports and the parameter files that go with them. Atlan extracts lineage from these files. It doesn't connect to a live PowerCenter repository or database. You export them yourself, package them into .zip archives, and either upload them when you create the crawler workflow or stage them in a cloud object store for the workflow to import.

Parameter files are technically optional, but most PowerCenter mappings use parameters to resolve connections, schemas, and table names at runtime. Without the matching parameter files, lineage for those mappings is incomplete, so plan to prepare them in almost all cases.

Prerequisites​

Before you begin, make sure you have:

  • Informatica PowerCenter 7, 8, 9, or 10
  • A PowerCenter account with read permission on the repository objects you want to export and the Access Repository Manager privilege
  • The pmrep command-line utility or the PowerCenter client (Repository Manager or Designer) to run the export
  • Atlan connector permissions to create and configure connectors

Export necessary repository objects to XML files​

Export the folders you want to catalog from your PowerCenter repository. Use whichever method suits your environment.

  1. Connect to your repository with pmrep connect.

  2. Export each folder with pmrep objectexport, writing one XML file per folder. Include dependent objects and the objects referenced by shortcuts so lineage that passes through shortcuts resolves—for example, add the -b, -r, -m, and -s flags.

    pmrep objectexport -f <FolderName> -u <FolderName>.xml -b -r -m -s

Naming and content requirements​

The connector reads the repository and folder names directly from each export, so the files must follow these rules:

  • Name each file after its PowerCenter folder. For example, name it SalesETL.xml for the SalesETL folder.
  • Export one folder per XML file. If a single XML file contains more than one folder, only the first folder in the file is crawled—split multi-folder exports so each file holds a single folder.
  • Upload folders that contain workflows or mappings. A folder that holds only shared or reusable objects has no workflows of its own, so uploading it on its own fails with an empty-extraction error. Include those shared objects as dependencies of a workflow folder (see the export step earlier) instead of uploading the shared folder as a standalone file.
  • Each XML file must contain its <REPOSITORY NAME> and <FOLDER NAME> declarations.
  • All XML files in a single upload or storage prefix must belong to the same repository, and each folder name must be unique.

Gather parameter files​

If your mappings use parameters such as $$Param or $Param, collect the corresponding parameter files so the connector can resolve those tokens to real connection, schema, and table names during extraction. Without them, parameterized values are flagged as unresolved and may reduce lineage accuracy.

Supported parameter file extensions: .par, .txt, and .properties.

Package files into zip​

  1. Compress your repository XML exports into a standard .zip archive. Add the .xml files directly to the archive—don't place a .zip inside the .zip, because nested archives aren't extracted.
  2. If you gathered parameter files, compress them into a separate .zip archive.

If you import from cloud storage instead of uploading, you can stage either the same .zip archives or the loose .xml files under a prefix.

warning

Use a standard, uncompressed-password .zip. The connector rejects encrypted archives, symbolic links, and entries with absolute paths for security reasons.

Next steps​

Crawl Informatica PowerCenter assets: Create the workflow, provide your archives, and run the crawl to build lineage