Creating replication sets

Business Class

Select a business class.

Delivered

You cannot edit this setting. If checked, it means you are restricted from making changes to the fields from this business class that are included in the replication set, with the exception of adding fields from the business class not currently in the replication set and adding user or custom fields. To add user or custom fields, select the Custom Fields tab.

Custom Fields

For delivered replication sets (those with a name ending in "_ST"), a Custom Fields tab is available for adding custom fields. Click the Create button and then select the field you want to add. Provide a Replicate Name that will never conflict with current or future fields in the business class, for example by adding a prefix or suffix to ensure the name is unique.

If the delivered replication set is updated in a future release, the custom fields are persisted in the replication set definition. The custom fields and the delivered ones are sent within the same payload when the replication occurs. Note that when any new fields are added to the replication set the schema must be registered again.

Inactive

Indicates if the business class for this replication set is active or inactive. Inactive classes will not be replicated.

Replicate Class

In order to avoid duplicate data, you should provide an alternate name in the replicated data for the business class. The recommended approach is to prefix the name with a short text string not used in any other replication set. See also the description of the Name Prefix field.

Also Replicate To Columnar

If the replication set's export format is not columnar, you can use this check box to replicate the business class to a columnar table as well as to the replication set's data export type.

Columnar Flatten Hierarchy

For columnar tables, select this check box if the selected business class has child or parent hierarchies and you want to flatten those hierarchies. Flattening will enable the tables to be more efficiently consumed by Birst. These columnar tables will be stored in Landmark and their names will end in "_CFH".

Number of Hierarchy Levels

Select the number of hierarchy levels to flatten. Specify a number that is slightly higher than the number of hierarchies needed to capture the data that you need. Specifying a number of levels that is unnecessarily high will impact performance.

Always Rebuild

Select this check box if you want to always rebuild the columnar table on each replication. If you do not select this check box, the replication will be incremental. However, the system will rebuild completely if hierarchy changes make rebuilding necessary.

Use Columnar Variation Pattern

If the replication set's export format is columnar, select this check box to improve the performance of incremental replications to a columnar table if the table holds a large amount of data and you need to do frequent incremental replications. With this selected, updated records will be inserted into the columnar table with a variation id (without deleting the previous record). Landmark views created on the columnar table will read only the latest variation of any record. External views will need to query the appropriate columnar table and use the last variation ID for the current record when data is replicated using the columnar variation pattern.

Note: If you have an existing replication set with Use Columnar Variation Pattern selected and that replication set has been replicated, and you then deselect this check box, you will need to reset that replication set business class record and re-replicate the replication set. However, there is no special consideration for an existing replication set where you have already replicated and then choose to select the Use Columnar Variation Pattern check box. The correct incremental variation will be reflected on the columnar view list (that is, there is no need to reset and re-replicate).

Disable Incremental Replication

Select this if you want to replicate all records each time the replication is run, even if the records have not changed. You can only use this option if the business class has an update stamp. However, Infor recommends that you do not disable incremental replication for large data sets. For business classes without an update stamp, you must select this option. When doing a full replication, all records will be "creates." When doing incremental replication, you can expect a mix of "creates" and "updates."

Re-Replicate On Any Change

If this check box is selected and incremental replication is not disabled and indicator replication is not enabled, any change to a record will replicate all records for the replication class not just the changed record(s). If the replication is for columnar, the table will be dropped and recreated.

Additional Business Class

This field appears if you selected the Re-Replicate On Any Change check box. If you specify a business class in this field, any change in this business class will trigger a full replication for the replication class. If the replication is for columnar, the table will be dropped and recreated.

Override Replication Set Time Storage Resolution

To override the value set for the replication set, select a different time unit.

Data To Extract

Select the type of data to include in the replication. Your choices are:

• Current Data
• Audit Log Entries (only valid for business classes that implement auditing)
• Future Effective Entries (only valid for business classes that implement effective dating)
• Audit and Future Entries (both audit log and future effective entries in the same replication set)

Include Source Entry Action

If you select Default, the source entry action field is included in the replication data. For other values, the action field is not included. You can select true or false to have an explicit choice.

Earliest Change Date to Include

Use this field to set a date so that the replication of the business class includes only data that has been created or modified on or after that date. For more information about this field and about backfilling data, see Setting an earliest data inclusion date and backfilling data.

Backfill Through

After you have performed a replication for a business class where you have set a date in the Earliest change date to include, this field replaces the Earliest change date to include field and displays the date back to which data was replicated.

Multi Thread Full Replications

Select this check box to enable the multi-threading of full replications. This setting can also be applied to the initial replication of a replication set that will be incrementally updated in the future. You cannot use this setting on replication sets that are for backfilling of data.

If you select this, you will need to specify the number of threads and the field to use to partition the data. You will only be able to choose the multi-thread field from available numeric, integer, date, or timestamp fields (date and timestamp field values are converted internally to numeric in order to enable their use). The number of threads will determine the number of partitions of the data and the number of async jobs to process the replication. When you select a field to use for multi-threading, the best fields to select will be included in the primary index and will be ones that allow for data to be distributed as evenly as possible across threads (for example, an auto-sequenced key value is ideal).

Enable Indicator Replication

For business classes that support indicator replication, this check box is selected by default. When selected, it causes incremental replication to be applied only to records where the indicator field value equals the "replicate when" value specified in the business class's LPL. After replication, the indicator field value will be changed to the "set to" value, which is also specified in the LPL, and other actions may be applied. The use of the indicator field means that incremental replication is not done based on the update stamp on records, but rather on how the application has defined that business class. Because of the way that databases use the update stamp to index and process records, using the indicator field instead can result in much better replication performance for high-volume business classes.

Indicator Field

Some business classes that support indicator replication have more than one indicator field. Use this field to specify which indicator field this replication set will use. One advantage to specifying different indicator fields for different replication sets that include the same business class, is that only one replication set can include that business class if it had only one indicator field available. With multiple indicator fields for a business class, it is possible to include that business class in different replication sets that serve different purposes. For backwards capability, any replication sets that were defined with only the Enable Indicator Replication check box selected will use the first indicator field defined in the business class LPL.

Create Only

When this check box is selected, any updated records are sent as Creates (deleted records are still sent as Deletes). Selecting this check box can improve replication performance, particularly for columnar replications for large business classes where the records are expected to be immutable once they have been replicated. The business class must meet several conditions:

• The business class records include an update stamp.
• The indicator pattern should specify "index update stamp set".
• The indicator field has auditing disabled or the business class is not audited.

If the indicator field were audited, replication would cause the update stamp to be changed, which in turn would hinder performance by causing otherwise unneeded reads of the records. If the conditions for the business class are met and the Create Only check box is selected, then the incremental replication will replicate records where both the update stamp indicates they are new or modified and the "replication when" value for the indicator field is matched.

Ignore Indicator On Full Replication

When this check box is selected, for the initial replication or after a reset, the replication will pick up any records where the indicator field matches either the "replicate when" value or the "set to" value. Any that are not already set to the "set to" value will get updated. This allows re-replicating without having to reset the indicator on all records. When this check box is not selected, both full and incremental replications will only pick up records that match the "replicate when" value.

When you select the type of persistent fields to add, you can also choose to explode compound fields and to replace periods with underscores in the field names. Compound fields are always exploded during replication but selecting the Explode Compound Fields check box enables you to see the exploded field names in the list of fields and also to set different replication field names for the members of the compound field. If you select the Explode Compound Fields check box, the Use SQL Name check box appears. Selecting this will cause the replication names to be auto-generated from the SQL name. This can be useful, for example, to avoid issues with field names that are too long.

If the replication set data will be used where periods are not allowed, the use of periods in the LPL compound field names could be a problem. To avoid this issue, you can use the Replace Periods With Underscores check box.

You can also use Fields tab to modify the list of fields, such as by adding them individually or deleting them. If you add fields to a business class in a delivered replication set, be sure to add an alternate name via the Replicate Name field. Use the Related Replicates tab to add related records. If the related record has changed, the business class record will replicate also even if it has not changed. (You can use this tab only if you selected Current Data in the Data To Extract field.)

Module

Select one of the application modules in order to include business classes associated with that module.

Owned By

Select All, Application, or Framework to indicate whether you want to include business classes that belong to the application, to the framework, or to both. If you selected a module, there is no need to select a value for this field.

Name Is Like

Specify a character string, including asterisks to indicate any character in order to select the business classes with matching names.

Name Prefix

Specify a prefix to avoid duplicates in the replicated data. This is strongly recommended and necessary if multiple replication sets will include the same business class. It is also important that this prefix differ from any prefixes used by any replication sets delivered by a Landmark application.

Automatically add fields?

Select the types of persistent fields that you want to have added automatically to the replication sets, and select if you want to add cube dimension values for persistent fields.

Explode Compound Fields

Compound fields are always exploded during replication but selecting the Explode Compound Fields check box enables you to see the exploded field names in the list of fields and also to set different replication field names for the members of the compound field. If you select the Explode Compound Fields check box, the Use SQL Name check box appears. Selecting this will cause the replication names to be auto-generated from the SQL name. This can be useful, for example, to avoid issues with field names that are too long.

Replace Periods With Underscores

If the replication set data will be used where periods are not allowed, the use of periods in the LPL compound field names could be a problem. To avoid this issue, you can use the Replace Periods With Underscores check box.