8 Data Flow
Learn about data flows in Oracle Data Integrator.
Topics
What is a Data Flow
Learn what is a data flow in Oracle Data Integrator.
A data flow is the automatic conversion of the business rules that were defined in a mapping. It carries out the joins, filters, mappings, and constraints from source data to target tables.
By default, Oracle Data Integrator (ODI) uses an Extract Load Transform (E-LT) strategy as it first extracts and loads the temporary tables and then finishes the transformations in the target relational database. It uses the target database as a staging area for loading source data into temporary tables before applying all the required mappings, staging filters, joins and constraints. Staging is a separate area in the relational database (either a schema or database) where ODI creates its temporary objects and executes some of the rules, for example, mappings, joins, final filters, and aggregations. The business rules are transformed into code by Knowledge Modules.
If source volumes are small (less than 500,000 records), the staging area can be located in ODI's In-Memory Engine (its in-memory relational database). In this case, ODI behaves like a traditional Extract Transform Load (ETL) tool.
See Data Flow in Understanding Oracle Data Integrator.