The DataBee New Loader Rule Form

The New Loader Rule form enables the manual creation of various types of loader rule in a loader set. There is an equivalent form, called the New Extraction Rule form which offers similar options for extraction sets. Other than Command Rules, all of the rules required for a loader set are usually automatically built by the Net Set Wizard when the loader set is first created by the Set Designer application.

There are a number of documents and help files which will help you learn about the DataBee software. The About the Extraction and Load Process help file discusses how the rules are configured in the loader sets to load a referentially correct subset database and the Quick Start Guide is a really useful step-by-step introduction to the DataBee software and contains links to a number of interactive tutorials.

Important Note: The DataBee software is multi-threaded and will run multiple rules simultaneously. All rules in a loader set must be configured with rule blocks in order to explicitly specify the execution order. The image below shows a typical loader set with the rules configured in rule blocks 10, 15, 20, 30, 40 and 45.

An Example Loader Set Rule Blocks

The DataBee Support team is always happy to provide advice and assistance (yes, even for an evaluation copy). If you need help please email us at Support@Net2000Ltd.com.

All load operations performed by the DataBee software are specified in the form of rules, called loader rules, which dictate the actions taken. In order to choose the appropriate type of loader rule for a particular task it is essential to understand both the requirements of the task and also the uses of the various loader rules. Below are a list of links to the help files on each specific loader rule type.

Trigger Manager rules are used to disable the triggers in the target schema prior to load and to re-enable those triggers again afterwards. It is not absolutely necessary for the triggers to be disabled during the load process. However if tables which contain INSERT triggers are loaded, those triggers will fire and the load process will slow down considerably. Often such triggers are in only place to support auditing mechanisms which are not important in a subset test and development database. In such cases, disabling the triggers while loading is the best option.

Foreign Key Manager rules are used to disable the foreign keys in the target schema prior to load and to re-enable those foreign keys afterwards. The foreign keys must be disabled prior to the load because, although the Load Manager rule will copy over every row referentially required to be present in the target schema, it cannot ensure that while the load is actually in process that referentially integrity between all tables will always be maintained. Thus the foreign keys have to be disabled before the load takes place and re-enabled afterwards.

Load Manager rules perform the actual copy of the data from the source to the target database. It is possible to edit the Load Manager rule to skip the load of specified tables and if the table structure is different between the source and target schemas it is possible to configure specific data transformation rules on a table.

A Truncate Manager rule removes all rows from the target table. By default, all tables in the target schema are truncated. If a table should not be truncated, then the Truncate Manager rule can be edited to omit that table from its truncation operations.

Command rules can execute any Oracle SQL command or PL/SQL script. This type of rule is often used to perform administrative functions which assist with the load process. An example of this would be performing an analyze of the schema after it is loaded to ensure that the statistics on each table are current.

Rule Controller A Rule Controller contains login information. Rule Controllers tell their dependent loader rules which database and schema they should connect to in order to perform their actions. All other loader rule types must have a parent Rule Controller and every loader set must contain at least one Rule Controller.

Important Note: The first Rule Controller is created when the loader set is built. Most loader sets will only ever need one Rule Controller. If it is required to connect to a second schema within the same loader set (rather than just building a second loader set) then additional Rule Controllers can be created. The use of multiple rule controllers in an loader set is an advanced topic and it is strongly suggested that advice and assistance is obtained from the DataBee support team prior to implementation.