Session 1

Ab Initio An Introduction

What Does Ab Initio Mean?

Ab

Initio is a Latin phrase that means:

Of, relating to, or occurring at the
beginning; first.
From first principles, in scientific circles.
From the beginning, in legal circles.

Why Ab Initio

Ab Initio software solves the toughest

problems today facing developers and
architects of enterprise-wide data
processing systems: Scalability,
Development time, Metadata
management, and Integration.

Ab Initio Solutions
Ab Initio software is used in a wide variety of systems,
including:
Data Warehousing
Extraction, Transformation and Loading (ETL)
Real-Time Data Collection and Analysis
Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
Data Mining
On-Line Analytical Processing (OLAP)
Click-stream analysis

The aforementioned systems employ:

Scalable,

Parallel Execution of Existing

Programs (written in C, Cobol, C++, Java or
any other language)
Parallel Sort/Merge Processing,
Aggregation, and Referential Integrity
Checking
Integration of Disparate Data, Including
Legacy Data
Integration of Disparate Applications

The high-level architecture of Ab

Initio software is shown below:
You construct Ab Iniito Applications from building
blocks called components
This tutorial describes how to build applications
in Ab Initios GDE
Many Components are predefined in a
Component Library. You can add your own.
The Co>operating System unites distributed
resources into a single Virtual Computer to run
applications in parallel
Ab Initio software runs on UNIX and NT
operating systems.

Ab initio Platforms
No problem is too big or too small for Ab
Initio. Ab Initio runs on a few processors or
few hundred processors. Ab Initio runs on
virtually every kind of hardware
SMP (Symmetric Multiprocessor) systems
MPP (Massively Parallel Processor) systems
Clusters
PCs

Ab Initio runs on many operating systems

Compaq Tru64 UNIX

Digital Unix
Hewlett-Packard HP-UX
IBM AIX
NCR MP-RAS
Red Hat Linux
IBM/Sequent DYNIX/ptx
Siemens Pyramid Reliant UNIX
Silicon Graphics IRIX
Sun Solaris
Windows NT and Windows 2000

Ab Initio base software consists

of two main pieces:
Ab

Initio Co>Operating System and core

components
Graphical Development
environment(GDE)

Graphical Method for Building

Business Applications

A Graph is a picture that represents the

various processing stages of task and the
streams of data as they move from one stage
to another.
One Picture is worth a thousand words, is one
graph worth a thousand lines of code? Ab Initio
application graphs often represent in a diagram
or two what might have taken hundreds to
thousands of lines of code. This can
dramatically reduce the time it takes to
develop, test, and maintain application

What is Graph Programming

Working with the premise that application
developers work visually, Ab Initio based the
GDE on the Data Flow Model
Data flow diagrams allow you to think in
terms of meaningful processing steps, not
microscopic lines of code
Data flow diagrams capture the movement of
information through the application.
Ab Initio calls this development method
Graph Programming

Graph Programming?
The process of constructing Ab Initio
applications is called Graph Programming.
In Ab Initios Graphical Development
Environment, you build an application by
manipulating components, the building blocks
of the graph.
Ab Initio Graphs are based on the Data Flow
Model. Even the symbols are similar. The basic
parts of Ab Initio graphs are shown below.

Symbols
Boxes for processing and Data
Transforms
Arrows for Data Flows between
processes
Cylinders for serial I/O files
Divided cylinders for parallel I/O files
Grid boxes for database tables

Graph Programming Contd

Working with the GDE on your desktop is easier than

drawing a data flow diagram on a white board. You simply
drag and drop functional modules called Components
and link them with a swipe of the mouse. When its time
to run the application, Ab Initio Co>Operating System
turns the diagram into a collection of process running on
servers
The Ab Initio term for running data flow diagram is a
Graph. The inputs and outputs are dataset
components; the processing steps are program
components; and the data conduits are flows.

Reference material that

augments this tutorial includes:
Ab

Initio Data Manipulation Language

Reference.
Ab Initio Component Reference.
Ab Initio Co>Operating System
Administrators Guide.
Ab Initio Release Notes.
Ab Initio GDE On-line Help.