Advanced Parallel Job Techniques

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Preliminary Questionnaire

The following questions are to assess your readiness to undertake the advanced class.

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1. Which of the following parallel stage types is not used to combine rows from two or more Data Sets?

Transformer
Join
Lookup
Funnel


2. Which of the following statements is not true?

BASIC Transformer executes in sequential mode
BASIC Transformer executes in parallel mode
BASIC Transformer can call server routines
BASIC Transformer has one stream input and zero or more reference inputs


3. A parallel job generates an import error in row number 0. Where will you find information that allows you to resolve the cause?

generated OSH
table definition (record schema)
detail of log message
score


4. Which of the following stage types does not support a "rejects" link?

Sequential File
Transformer (parallel)
Lookup
Peek


5. In a parallel Transformer stage which of the following functions will convert a date into a character string?

Oconv()
Iconv()
DateToString()
string_from_date()


6. What is the maximum number of description annotations in a parallel job design?

zero
one
two
unlimited


7. How can you import a definition of an Oracle table into the Repository?

Oracle OCI plug-in
ODBC
Orchestrate orchdbutil utility
all of the above


8. Which tool allows you to see the number of rows processed on a link for a particular partition (processing node)? Assume default settings for all environment variables.

Director (Monitor)
Director (Log view)
Designer (performance statistics)
Designer (Debugger)


9. Which of the following stage types is found in the Processing folder of the parallel job Palette?

Peek
Copy
Row Generator
Complex Flat File


10. Which parallel Transformer function would you use to add 36 hours to a date?

AddDate()
AddTime()
AddSeconds()
not possible with a single function


11. Which of the following statements is false?

Copy stage has zero or more output links
Copy stage can drop columns
Copy stage can derive columns
Copy stage can rename columns


12. Which of the following combination of links can not be supported by a Sequential File stage?

input and reject
output only
input and output
output and reject


13. Which of the following combination of links can not be supported by an Enterprise stage?

input and reject
output only
input and output
output and reject


14. In a parallel job which of the following stage types can not be used to supply rows to a reference link?

Sequential File stage
Lookup File Set stage
UniVerse stage
ODBC Enterprise stage


15. Which of the following is not a default value keyword for environment variable job parameters?

$DEFAULT
$ENV
$PROJDEF
$UNSET


16. Identify which of the following can not be used in a column derivation expression in a parallel Transformer stage.

job parameter
system variable
DS transform
link variable


17. Which of the following statements is true?

An in-band null can have any value.
An out-of-band null can have any value.
Fields derived from the right input of a left outer join must be nullable.
Fields derived from the left input of a left outer join must be nullable.


18. Which of the following statements is false?

SetNull() can generate an out-of-band null.
handle_null() can generate an out-of-band null.
MakeNull() can generate an in-band null.
NullToValue() can generate an in-band null.


19. Which of the following statements is false?

"Upsert" load method may insert or update rows.
"Write" load method invokes a direct load utility.
"Upsert" load method uses DML.
"Write" load method uses DML.


20. The name of the environment variable that selects the configuration to use to execute a parallel job is:

UVCONFIG
APT_DUMP_SCORE
APT_CONFIG_FILE
APT_EXECUTION_FILE


21. Partitioning is required:

to spread data rows across available processing nodes
to ensure that grouping keys are correctly clustered
to cause key adjacency for stages like Remove Duplicates
all of the above


22. Which of the following stage types does not require its inputs to be sorted?

Join
Lookup
Merge
Remove Duplicates


23. The message "delimiter not found in record 0" appears as the only warning in the job log. What is the most likely cause?

Sequential file does not have a record 0.
Property "First line is column names" is not set properly.
There is no line terminator on the first line in the file.
There is a bug in the Sequential File stage.


24. A job sequence can be used to execute:

operating system commands
parallel jobs
a mixture of server and parallel jobs
other job sequences
all of the above


  I certify that the above responses are all my own work.