Chapter 8. Integrating File Data

While databases are obviously extremely significant in the realm of data integration, a large amount of data is held in flat files.

In this chapter, we'll be taking a look at how ODI plays a significant part in simplifying the integration of flat-file data using concepts and approaches that are identical to those used with database-hosted data, thereby dramatically reducing the learning curve. It also helps simplify the developer skills needed to use some of the specialized bulk data import/export functionality that databases provide, since that specialized functionality is encapsulated in Knowledge Modules.

Specifically what we'll cover in this chapter is:

• Extend the ODI Topology definition to refer to some input files and then reverse-engineer the input file metadata from both fixed format and delimited files

• Integrate data from a file using Oracle External Tables as the mechanism for the data import

This will give us the skills to get started with using files...