Instant Pentaho Data Integration Kitchen

By Sergio Ramazzina

In Detail

Pentaho PDI is a modern, powerful, and easy-to-use ETL system that lets you develop ETL processes with simplicity. Explore and gain the experience and skills that you need to run processes from the command line or schedule them by using an extensive description and a good set of samples.

Instant Pentaho Data Integration Kitchen How-to will help you to understand the correct way to deal with PDI command line tools. We start with a recipe about how to configure your memory requirements to run your processes effectively and then move forward with a set of recipes that show you the different ways to start PDI processes.

We start with a recap about how transformations and jobs are designed using spoon and then move forward to configure memory requirements to properly run your processes from the command line.

We dive into the various flags that control the logging system by specifying the logging output and the log verbosity. We focus and deliver all the knowledge you require to run the ETL processes using command line tools with ease and in a proficient manner.

Approach

Filled with practical, step-by-step instructions and clear explanations for the most important and useful tasks. A practical guide with easy-to-follow recipes helping developers to quickly and effectively collect data from disparate sources such as databases, files, and applications, and turn the data into a unified format that is accessible and relevant to end users.

Who this book is for

Any IT professional working on PDI and is a valid support for either learning how to use the command line tools efficiently or for going deeper on some aspects of the command line tools to help you work better.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Release date: Jul 26, 2013
• ISBN: 9781849696913

Sergio Ramazzina

Sergio Ramazzina is a software architect/trainer with more than 20 years of experience on a broad number of projects for banks and major Italian companies, designing complex enterprise solutions in Java/JavaEE and Ruby. He started using Pentaho products from the very beginning in late 2003, gaining deep experience by deploying Pentaho as an open source BI solution, standalone, or deeply integrated in other applications that he had designed as the analytics engine of choice. Starting from 2009, based on his experience in the Java/JavaEE world and because of the appreciation for the open source world and its main ideas, he began participating actively as a contributor to some of the Pentaho projects: JPivot, Saiku, CDF, and CDA, and gained the Pentaho Active Contributor level. In late 2010 he founded Serasoft, a young Italian consulting company specialized in the design and delivery of open source Business Intelligence solutions and started participating as a BI architect and Pentaho expert on a wide number of projects where the open source BI and Pentaho are the main actors. He is also covering the role of CTO for Athilab (Athirat Innovation Lab), sharing his experience in the design and delivery of high value innovative enterprise solutions. He is always looking for innovative solutions that can help users work more efficiently. He is also passionate about skiing, tennis, and photography

Book preview

Table of Contents

Instant Pentaho Data Integration Kitchen

Credits

About the Author

About the Reviewer

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more

Why Subscribe?

Free Access for Packt account holders

Preface

How the story began…

Kettle components

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Downloading the example code

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Instant Pentaho Data Integration Kitchen

Designing a simple PDI transformation (Simple)

Getting ready

How to do it...

There's more...

How to quickly find the steps to use

Designing a simple PDI job (Simple)

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Why a proper naming for tasks and steps is so important

Using internal variables to write location-independent processes

The important role of icon and color indicators

Configuring command-line tools to run properly (Simple)

Getting ready

How to do it...

There's more...

Making things easier by writing custom scripts

Executing PDI jobs from a filesystem (Simple)

Getting ready

How to do it…

Executing PDI jobs packaged in archive files (Intermediate)

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Changes in job and transformation design

Executing PDI jobs from the repository (Simple)

Getting ready

How to do it...

There's more...

Changes in job and transformation design

How to define a filesystem repository

Defining a database repository

Dealing with the execution log (Simple)

Getting ready

How to do it...

There's more...

Understanding the log to identify where our process fails

Separating execution logfiles by date and time

Discovering your PDI repository from the command line (Simple)

Getting ready

How to do it...

Exporting jobs and transformations to the .zip files (Simple)

Getting ready

How to do it...

How it works...

There's more...

Managing PDI processes return code (Simple)

Getting ready

How to do it...

There's more...

A summary of Kitchen/Pan exit codes

Scheduling PDI jobs and transformations (Intermediate)

Getting ready

How to do it...

There's more...

Understanding crontab malfunctions

Instant Pentaho Data Integration Kitchen

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Instant Pentaho Data Integration Kitchen

Copyright © 2013 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

Every effort has been made in the preparation of this book to ensure the accuracy of the information presented. However, the information contained in this book is sold without warranty, either express or implied. Neither the author, nor Packt Publishing, and its dealers and distributors will be held liable for any damages caused or alleged to be caused directly or indirectly by this book.

Packt Publishing has endeavored to provide trademark information about all of the companies and products mentioned in this book by the appropriate use of capitals. However, Packt Publishing cannot guarantee the accuracy of this information.

First published: July 2013

Production Reference: 1240713

Published by Packt Publishing Ltd.

Livery Place

35 Livery Street

Birmingham B3 2PB, UK.

ISBN 978-1-84969-690-6

www.packtpub.com

Credits

Author

Sergio Ramazzina

Reviewer

Joel Latino

Acquisition Editor

Erol Staveley

Commissioning Editor

Shreerang Deshpande

Technical Editor

Sampreshita Maheshwari

Copy Editor

Insiya Morbiwala

Project Coordinator

Suraj Bist

Proofreader

Paul Hindle

Production Coordinator

Zahid Shaikh

Cover Work

Prachali Bhiwandkar

Cover Image

Aditi Gajjar

About the Author

Sergio Ramazzina is a software architect/trainer with over 20 years of experience working on a large number of projects for banks and major Italian companies as well as designing complex enterprise solutions in Java/JavaEE and Ruby. He started using Pentaho products from the very beginning (late 2003), gaining vast experience by deploying Pentaho as an open source, standalone BI solution. He also deeply integrated Pentaho as the analytics engine of choice in other applications he designed. Starting from 2009, based on his experience in the Java/JavaEE world and because of his appreciation for the open source world and its principles, he began participating actively as a contributor to some Pentaho projects, such as JPivot, Saiku, CDF, and CDA, and he has achieved the title of Pentaho Active Contributor.

In late 2010, he founded Serasoft, a young Italian consulting company specialized in the design and delivery of open source business intelligence solutions, and he started participating as a BI architect and Pentaho expert on a wide number of projects where open source BI and Pentaho were the main heroes. He is also the CTO of Athilab (Athirat Innovation Lab), sharing his experience in the design and delivery of high-value innovative enterprise solutions. He is always looking for innovative solutions that can help users make their work more efficient. He is also passionate about skiing, tennis, and photography.

About the Reviewer

Joel Latino was born in Ponte de Lima, Portugal, in 1989. He has been working in the IT industry since 2010, mostly as a software developer and BI developer.

He started his career at Xpand-IT—a Portuguese company specialized in strategic planning, consulting, implementation, and the maintenance of enterprise software that is fully adapted to the customer's needs—and earned his graduate degree in Informatics Engineering