New features and changes are introduced for IBM® InfoSphere® Information Server,
Version 11.3, along with documentation updates. The new and changed
features and documentation updates are described in the following
sections.
Suite-wide
features
- Secure integration platform
- InfoSphere Information Server Version
11.3 provides a more secure integration platform with these security
features:
- Single sign-on: All the InfoSphere Information Server browser-based
clients now support single sign-on so that when you authenticate with
one of the clients you can interact with the other clients.
- SSL communication: InfoSphere Information Server now
uses SSL to provide communication security for all client interfaces.
Self-signed certificates are created during installation for you to
use, but you can choose to install your own CA-verified certificate
afterward. For more information, see Managing certificates.
- Stronger encryption: The default encryption mechanisms for InfoSphere Information Server are
now RSA 2048 and SHA-512.
- Cell sharing: InfoSphere Information Server now
uses the WebSphere® Application Server standard
security domain. So InfoSphere Information Server can
be deployed into a cell that is managed by a secured deployment manager
without disrupting the profiles and applications that are already
deployed in the cell.
- WebSphere Application Server Liberty Profile
- InfoSphere Information Server provides
the option to install WebSphere Application Server Liberty Profile,
a fast-starting, dynamic application server runtime environment for
the services tier. It is quicker to install and easier to maintain,
and it uses fewer system resources. For more information about using
this application server or WebSphere Application Server Network
Deployment, see Options for installing the application server software.
- Application server cluster installation
- Installation with an application server cluster is simplified.
You can select information about the clusters that you have available,
and you can install against a cluster member rather than a front-end
web server. The configuration of the front-end web server can be done
after installation when the necessary components are available and
known. For more information about setting up a clustered WebSphere Application Server configuration,
see Options for installing the application server software.
InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog
New
to this release, InfoSphere Business
Glossary, InfoSphere Business
Glossary Anywhere, and InfoSphere Metadata
Workbench are consolidated into the new product InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog. InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog delivers
business-driven information to the enterprise faster for more confident
business decisions. It builds and deploys trusted information by connecting
business requirements to IT assets and by supporting the entire information
delivery lifecycle.
InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog includes
these key features:
- Streamlined user interface
- The overall design of InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog enhances
your ability to easily manage and govern your assets. InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog has
a streamlined user interface with enhanced embedded assistance. You
can browse, search, and query all assets in the catalog, and then
run lineage reports from within the catalog, without the need to open
a different application.
- Lineage features
- Lineage report results are faster and more comprehensive due to
a changed architecture and a new Lineage Viewer. The architecture
stores the links between assets so that these links do not need to
be recalculated for each lineage report. The Lineage Viewer no longer
requires Adobe Flash Player.
As a result, the Lineage Viewer can display many hundreds of assets
and relationships, and quickly pan and zoom the report.
- Lineage filters can focus attention on data assets that your organization
finds most useful by hiding other assets, or other assets and their
data flows, from the lineage graph. For more information, see Managing lineage filters.
- Graphic rendering and filtering are done at much faster speeds.
- Lineage reports can be displayed on iPhones, iPads, and other
mobile devices.
- Lineage reports now include references to assets from jobs or
mapping documents even when the assets are not specifically imported
into the metadata repository. These asset references can help to improve
data governance.
- Glossary features
- Business-level vocabulary and information governance policies
that govern data sources to specify data quality, data movement, lifecycle,
data privacy, and other processes.
- Comprehensive workflow for business glossary authoring, approvals,
and publishing.
- Business-friendly interfaces for accessing business and IT information
from anywhere.
- Integration with other applications
- InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog is
integrated with these applications:
- InfoSphere Data Click to
copy selected database tables, data files, data file folders, and
Amazon S3 buckets from the catalog to a target distributed file system.
For more information, see Moving data by using InfoSphere Data
Click.
- InfoSphere Information Analyzer to
display its data rule definitions, data rule set definitions, data
rules, and data rule sets.
- The operational metadata that is generated when InfoSphere DataStage® and InfoSphere QualityStage® jobs
are run is stored in a new location and automatically copied to the
metadata repository. For more information, see Operational metadata.
- Other features
- User-managed metadata collections support collaborative development
of analytics and other information delivery projects. You can group
assets that you want to focus on, or to share with other users, into
a collection.
- You can display the relationships of a term in a hierarchical
tree format. This format helps you to better understand the meaning
of the term and its relationships with other terms. For more information,
see Browsing terms in the Term Type Hierarchy view.
- New roles are defined. For more information, see Security roles.
- You can display, edit, and browse Amazon S3 assets.
- Operational metadata that is generated when a job is run can now
be purged from the metadata repository by using a new istool command.
For more information, see workbench purgeOMD command.
InfoSphere Metadata Asset Manager
Import
support was added for the following tools and types of metadata:
- Amazon S3. Amazon S3 buckets and contained data file folders and
data files.
- CA ERwin Data Modeler 9. Logical and physical data models from
ERwin 9.1.
- Greenplum. Implemented data resources such as database tables
and columns from Greenplum databases.
- HDFS. Data file folders that represent directories in a Hadoop
Distributed File System (HDFS), for use in creating InfoSphere Data Click activities.
- InfoSphere Master Data Management.
Virtual and physical definitions and related database objects from InfoSphere MDM.
- Microsoft Analysis
Services and Reporting Services Repository. Implemented data resources
and business intelligence assets.
InfoSphere Data Click
The
self-service data integration feature of the InfoSphere Information Server suite
is greatly expanded in this release with the following enhancements:
- Home page function
- InfoSphere Data Click has
an updated home page where you can create and monitor activities.
- Authoring
- InfoSphere Data Click has
a new web-based and streamlined way to create and run activities from
within InfoSphere Data Click.
For more information, see Creating activities.
- Monitoring
- The monitoring in InfoSphere Data Click is
enhanced and now has links to the InfoSphere DataStage and QualityStage Operations Console for
more advanced monitoring. For more information, see Monitoring InfoSphere Data
Click activities.
- InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog integration
- You can now use InfoSphere Data Click to
move data that you select in InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog.
For more information, see Moving data by using InfoSphere Data
Click.
- Cloud data store support
- You can move data to and from Amazon S3 by using InfoSphere Data Click.
- Big data support
- You can move data to InfoSphere BigInsights®,
where you can perform advanced analytics on your data. You can access
and read data out of a Hadoop by using BigSQL and other JDBC methods.
For more information, see Scenarios for integrating InfoSphere Data Click and InfoSphere BigInsights.
- Relational database connector expansion
- In addition to previously supported connectors, you can now also
use the JDBC, Oracle, and DB2® connectors
to move data between a much broader set of data sources. For more
information, see Making assets available for use in activities.
- Workload management
- Jobs that are generated by InfoSphere Data Click activities
are now managed by the workload management features of InfoSphere Information Server,
which are available through the InfoSphere DataStage and QualityStage Operations Console.
For more information, see Configuring the workload management queue.
- Asset interchange
- You can use asset interchange to import and export InfoSphere Data Click activities
between InfoSphere Information Server instances.
For more information, see InfoSphere Data
Click assets.
- Access control
- With InfoSphere Data Click,
you can directly associate activities with project areas and their
user groups for more granular security and control. For more information,
see Creating InfoSphere Data
Click authors and users.
InfoSphere DataStage and InfoSphere QualityStage
- REST web services
- You can use the Hierarchical Data stage (previously called XML
Stage) to design jobs that interact with REST (Representational State
Transfer) web services by using HTTP methods. For example, you can
design jobs that perform tasks such as posting message to social networking
sites, interacting with systems such as Microsoft Sharepoint, or using maps and
directions. For more information, see REST web services.
- -url option for commands
- The InfoSphere DataStage CLI
now includes a new option, -url, for the logon
clause of the dsjob and dsadmin commands.
The option specifies a full format URL for the domain to log on to.
For more information, see The logon clause.
- Operations Console
- If the capturing of monitoring data is enabled, the AppWatcher
process is automatically started when the engine tier computer is
started. For more information, see Managing the data collection processes.
- Workload management
- The workload management system is now enabled by default. For
more information, see Administering
workload management.
- Big Data File stage compatibility
- The Big Data File stage is now compatible with Hortonworks 2.1,
Cloudera 4.5, and InfoSphere BigInsights 3.0.
- Sort stage optimization
- To reduce I/O operations for large sorts, the Sort stage converts
bounded length fields to variable length before the sort, and converts
them back to bounded length after the sort. Sort optimization also
improves run time during which implicit sorts are sometimes required,
for example, in InfoSphere QualityStage matching
and join steps. For more information, see APT_TSORT_NO_OPTIMIZE_BOUNDED.
- Improved flexibility in record delimiting
- The Sequential File stage and associated import operator can now
import records that do not contain all the fields in the import schema.
For more information, see APT_IMPORT_HANDLE_SHORT.
Connections to data sources
- Greenplum connector
- You can use the new Greenplum connector stages
in your jobs to read data from Greenplum databases, write data to
Greenplum databases, or look up data in the contexts of those jobs.
You can also import metadata from Greenplum databases by using InfoSphere Metadata Asset Manager (IMAM).
- InfoSphere Master Data Management connector
- You can use the new InfoSphere Master Data Management connector
stage in your InfoSphere DataStage jobs
to perform read and write operations. The MDM Connector stage can
be configured
to read data from or write data to InfoSphere MDM.
For more information, see IBM InfoSphere Master Data Management.
- Amazon S3 connector
- You can use the new Amazon S3 connector to connect to Amazon Simple
Storage Service (S3) and perform various read and write functions.
For more information, see Amazon S3 connector.
- Write to Microsoft Excel
files
- You can now design jobs that write data to Microsoft Excel files by using the Unstructured
Data stage.
InfoSphere Information Analyzer
- Performance
- InfoSphere Information Analyzer has
performance improvements in several areas:
- Multi-column primary key analysis: A new, more scalable algorithm
is used for multi-column primary key detection.
- Data rule execution: Data rules now use the native DB2 connector for writing to the analysis database.
Using the DB2 connector improves
performance because the DB2 connector
can use the bulk load connector method.
- Column analysis: Job execution is faster because InfoSphere Information Server engine
resources use a higher degree of parallelism and as a result run more
efficiently.
- User interface: Performance is improved because of optimizations
in communication between the InfoSphere Information Analyzer client
and the server.
- More database support
- InfoSphere Information Analyzer now
supports Netezza® and Hive
databases as data sources.
- Ease-of-use
- Configuration of the Data Rules stage in InfoSphere DataStage is
easier because of the addition of drag support.
- Integration with other applications
-
- Access to InfoSphere Metadata Asset Manager to
import metadata is now provided from within the InfoSphere Information Analyzer client.
- Unpublished data rule definitions and data rule set definitions
are displayed, and all InfoSphere Information Analyzer data
quality assets are easier to access in InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog.
InfoSphere Information Governance Dashboard
- SQL views and reports
- You can use the fully documented SQL views plus the included Cognos® reports
and dashboards to begin assessing your governance progress and customize
them to suit your needs. For more
information, see Working with the Cognos reports.
If you want to create your own dashboard or reports, you can use the
SQL views to do so. For more information, see Implementing your own information governance reports
with the SQL views of InfoSphere Information
Governance Dashboard.
- Objects that you can query
- Full documentation of the objects that you can query in the metadata
repository is provided, with diagrams and definitions. The objects
include the following categories:
- InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog policies,
information governance rules, categories, terms, stewards, custom
attributes, and labels
- InfoSphere Information Analyzer projects,
rules, rule definitions, rule sets, and metrics
- Implemented data resources that are imported into the metadata
repository, including host computers, databases, schemas, database
tables, and database columns
- Automatic integration of InfoSphere Information Governance Dashboard and
companion SQL Views
- InfoSphere Information Governance Dashboard and
the companion SQL Views are now integrated into the installation of InfoSphere Information Server.
You do not need to deploy the SQL views manually. The instructions
and necessary packages for installing the IBM Cognos reports
and dashboards are installed with InfoSphere Information Server.
The reports, dashboards, and views are automatically refreshed to
ensure that you are viewing the most up-to-date information.
- Access to IBM Cognos components
- InfoSphere Information Governance Dashboard also
includes entitlement to a select number of components of IBM Cognos.
The limited entitlement to the following components is included for
displaying the dashboards and reports that are included with InfoSphere Information Governance Dashboard.
- Cognos Administration
- Cognos Connection
- Cognos Report
Studio
- Cognos Viewer
For more information, see Configuring components.
- Launchpad link to workspace
- You can now set up a link on the InfoSphere Information Server Launchpad
to open the InfoSphere Information Governance Dashboard workspace.
For more information, see Setting up a link to InfoSphere Information
Governance Dashboard from the InfoSphere Information
Server Launchpad.
Deprecated features
- UniData stage
- The UniData 6 stage
is no longer supported. Use the UniData stage
to connect to UniData version
7.0 or earlier. For more information, see IBM UniVerse and UniData.
- IBM Cognos GO
and OSLC link types
- IBM Cognos GO
and OSLC link types are no longer supported.
- InfoSphere Metadata
Workbench Model Viewer
- The Model Viewer from InfoSphere Metadata
Workbench is not included in InfoSphere Information Governance Catalog.
- InfoSphere Information Services Director bindings
- InfoSphere Information Services Director no
longer supports the following bindings:
- REST. The REST2 binding continues to be available.
- SOAP over JMS.
- InfoSphere Information Services Director web
catalog
- The InfoSphere Information Services Director web
catalog is discontinued.
- InfoSphere DataStage mainframe
jobs
- Mainframe jobs are not supported in this version of InfoSphere Information Server.