Following on from the posting some time back entitled ‘ODI 11g – Simple, Powerful, Flexible’ here we push the envelope even further. Rather than just having the SQL we override defined statically in the interface design we will have it configurable via a variable….at runtime.

Imagine you have a well defined interface shape that you want to be fulfilled and that shape can be satisfied from a number of different sources that is what this allows - or the ability for one interface to consume data from many different places using variables. The cool thing about ODI’s reference API and this is that it can be fantastically flexible and useful.

When I use the variable as the option value, and I execute the top level scenario that uses this temporary interface I get prompted (or can get prompted to be correct) for the value of the variable.

Note I am using the <@=odiRef.getObjectName("L","EMP", "SCOTT","D")@> notation for the table reference, since this is done at runtime, then the context will resolve to the correct table name etc.

Each time I execute, I could use a different source provider (obviously some dependencies on KMs/technologies here). For example, the following groovy snippet first executes and the query uses SCOTT model with EMP, the next time it is from BOB model and the datastore OTHERS.

m=new Properties();
m.put("DEMO.SQLSTR", "select empno, deptno from <@=odiRef.getObjectName("L","EMP", "SCOTT","D")@>");
s=new StartupParams(m);
runtimeAgent.startScenario("TOP", null, s, null, "GLOBAL", 5, null, true);

m2=new Properties();
m2.put("DEMO.SQLSTR", "select empno, deptno from <@=odiRef.getObjectName("L","OTHERS", "BOB","D")@>");
s2=new StartupParams(m);
runtimeAgent.startScenario("TOP", null, s2, null, "GLOBAL", 5, null, true);

You’ll need a patch to 11.1.1.6 for this type of capability, thanks to my ole buddy Ron Gonzalez from the Enterprise Management group for help pushing the envelope!