DTS Implementation Phases

The figure below shows the main implementation phases:

1. Scope setup

The scope setup comprises the activities that are required to define the project scope. It starts with the selection of the content package while creating the DTS run ID. This content will require manual changes to reflect the project-specific mappings or input values – for example the list of company codes. Also, any customer-specific developments are added too. The content can be – but does not need to be – enhanced to reflect the project specification. The transformation logic can be defined within the DTS rules. The preselection logic can be defined by the DTS derivation paths and their assignment to the business object. For more information about the preselection, see the chapter DTS Preselection. To ensure that the scope is created consistently, a scenario-specific analysis might need to be performed. Any changes to the content must be made with a good understanding of the application. The scope setup phase leads to the preselection setup (if applicable for the scenario) and DTS table pool.

Once the scope is set, the SNP Validate test cases can be built to be ready for execution.

2. Execution setup

The goal of the execution setup phase is to ensure the best execution strategy. DTS selects the most performant execution strategy automatically. However, the default strategy might need to be adjusted in certain cases. DTS allows changes at the table level to determine how data is processed during the transformation. One of the often-used performance optimization methods is the parallelization setup. The step maintain technical settings describes all available technical settings.

3. Transformation execution

The transformation execution is the main phase where the data is processed. This phase slightly differs based on the scenario. Details can be found in the chapter Transformation Scenarios. It is completely performed in the system downtime, which means the system is locked and standard operations are not possible. The only exception is Near-Zero Downtime, for which some activities are performed in the uptime. If CrystalBridge Monitoring is set up for system monitoring, the performance data is collected for either immediate performance troubleshooting or for review. It is possible to use this data after the execution together with the DTS execution statistics to optimize the next execution.

4. Postprocessing and validation

The postprocessing phase heavily depends on the scenario and application, for example there are scenarios in which no postprocessing is needed. The data validation is performed to verify the data consistency.

5. Execution closure

At the end of the processing, DTS provides a few functions to document the execution. This mainly involves generating the execution statistics in the Excel file. The file contains a summary of the execution and table-level details for the runtime, number of processed records and transformation logic. Another important function is the set up the export step. It is possible to use the export for another execution to accelerate the phases scope setup and execution setup.