Configuring attributes

This section describes how to load standard and managed attribute configurations into a data domain.

The attribute schema of a data domain is defined by its Property Description Records (PDRs) and Dimension Description Records (DDRs). Standard attributes are defined by PDRs, while managed attributes are defined by both PDRs and DDRs.

If you load data without first defining an attribute schema, the loading interfaces (the Bulk Load Interface and Data Ingest Web Service [DIWS]) automatically create PDRs (and thus standard attributes) based on system defaults.

Recommended practice, however, is to define the attribute schema first by creating PDR and DDR input files, and loading these files to create the standard and managed attributes for the data domain. Once you have created these attributes, you can then load managed attribute values (mvals). For details about loading mvals, see Loading managed attribute values (MVals).