Viewing Lineage and Impact Analysis

This procedure shows how to trace the flow of data through lineage and impact analysis.

The Lineage and Impact Analysis view shows how data flows from data sources to data destinations and through Spectrum Technology Platform flows. Lineage and impact analysis are similar concepts that describe different ways of tracing the flow of data.

Lineage shows where data comes from. You can use it to trace the path of data back to its source, showing all the systems that process and store the data along the way, such as Spectrum Technology Platform flows, databases, and files.

  1. In a web browser, go to:

    http://server:port/discovery

    Where server is the server name or IP address of your Spectrum Technology Platform server and port is the HTTP port. By default, the HTTP port is 8080.

  2. Log in.
  3. Click Lineage & Impact Analysis.
  4. Click the Select Entity button .
  5. Select the type of entity you want to analyze. For example, if you want to view lineage or impact analysis for a dataflow, select Dataflows.
  6. Select the specific entity whose data you want to analyze.
  7. Click OK.

The resulting diagram shows the flow of data into and out of the entity you selected. The entity's lineage is to the left of the entity. The entity's impact is to the right. You can change the diagram to show only the entity's lineage or only the entity's impact .

Some entities are expandable, allowing you to view the flow of data within the entity, such as the specific tables that the data flows into in a database, or the stages in a Spectrum Technology Platform flow. To expand an entity, click the tab in the lower-right corner of the entity's icon:

Once expanded, you can see the details of the flow of data through the entity. For example, here we have expanded the database entity named Prod SQL Server. You can see that data in the table Customer Table comes from the Spectrum Technology Platform flow named Add to Customer DB. In addition, you can see that data from Customer Table is used by two flows: Query Customer Job and Geocode Job. Note as well that the flow Geocode Job writes data back to Customer Table, so in this example Customer Table is both and input to and an output from Geocode Job. This example could represent a situation where Geocode Job reads customer addresses from Customer Table, determines the latitude and longitude coordinates for the addresses, then adds the latitude and longitude fields to the customer records in Customer Table.