You can improve session performance by configuring the Joiner transformation to use sorted input. When you configure the Joiner transformation to use sorted data, the Integration Service improves performance by minimizing disk input and output. You see the greatest performance improvement when you work with large data sets.
To configure a mapping to use sorted data, you establish and maintain a sort order in the mapping so the Integration Service can use the sorted data when it processes the Joiner transformation. Complete the following tasks to configure the mapping:
Configure the sort order.
Configure the sort order of the data you want to join. You can join sorted flat files, or you can sort relational data using a Source Qualifier transformation. You can also use a Sorter transformation.
Add transformations.
Use transformations that maintain the order of the sorted data.
Configure the Joiner transformation.
Configure the Joiner transformation to use sorted data and configure the join condition to use the sort origin ports. The sort origin represents the source of the sorted data.
When you configure the sort order in a session, you can select a sort order associated with the Integration Service code page. When you run the Integration Service in Unicode mode, it uses the selected session sort order to sort character data. When you run the Integration Service in ASCII mode, it sorts all character data using a binary sort order. To ensure that data is sorted as the Integration Service requires, the database sort order must be the same as the user-defined session sort order.
When you join sorted data from partitioned pipelines, you must configure the partitions to maintain the order of sorted data.