Oracle Data Integrator Agent – What you need to know

What is an ODI Agent, and why do you need one?

• One question to ask yourself is “Do I need one?”.  The answer is “not necessarily”.  If you are doing development on your own, you can run Local (No Agent) versus installing an Agent.  In this case, the Oracle Data Integrator GUI is acting as the Agent.  When first using the product, this choice is fine.  However, when you start working with others on a project (and quite probably have to setup an Oracle Data Integrator shared team environment “in a hurry”), having knowledge about the Agent, and how to install and configure it will pay dividends.  And when going into Test or Production, you will need one.  The goal of this article is to help you understand the installation and configuration of the Agent so that you can avoid having the Agent become an obstacle to productivity and success for your development, test, and deployment teams.
• So – What is an ODI Agent?  The Agent, which runs in a separate lightweight Java Virtual Machine (JVM), is the ODI component that orchestrates your ODI processes.  Agents come in two flavors – Listener Agent, and Scheduler Agent.  For the purpose of this article, we will be discussing Listener Agent unless otherwise noted.  In addition to orchestrating processes, the Agent has the following additional responsibilities:
  • Takes the information stored in Knowledge Modules and generates the appropriate SQL for the technology that will Extract, Load, or Transform data
  • Connection Management with Sources and Targets
  • Transmission of the generated code for Execution on the Source or Target
  • Receive the response
  • Populate the Repository with return code and processing statistics, updating the logs (note:  these logs are in the Database, not Log4J logs) which can be viewed by the Operator module

How do I install an Agent?

The default Agent port is 20910.  Make sure that port (or the non default port you choose) is not in use before getting started (you can do this by running “netstat -a” from a command line interface).

How do I run (start) an Agent?

Run agent.bat (or agent.sh) from a command line interface.  Parameters are:

• -port=<port>                 The default port is 20910
• -help                               Prints help for the command
• -name=<agentname>    You may wish to encode your lifecycle development phase and project name in the Agent name ( -name=DevelopmentMasterCustomerData )
•  -v=                                Tracing output – specify a number from 1 to 5.  You may wish to redirect output to a file ( agent.bat “-v=5″ > trace.txt ).  Number 4 will trace the SQL queries executed

How do I stop an Agent?

Run agentstop.bat or agentstop.sh.  If no port is specified, the default port (20910) is assumed. 

Example:  agentstop.bat “-PORT=20200″ on Windows.

 

When using the Windows operating system, how do I start an Agent as a Service?

When the Agent platform is Windows, it can be useful to automatically launch the Oracle Data Integrator Agent when rebooting Windows.  To do that, you need to:

1. Edit the /bin/odiparams.bat file.   When the Agent is launched as a Windows Service, the service uses the agent startup parameters specified in odiparams.bat.  To avoid complexity, you should setup/define your Master and Work Repository before modifying Windows to run the Agent as a Windows Service.  In particular, eyeball the section of the file “Repository Connection Information” to make sure the information is correct.
2. From a Command Prompt, go to the /bin sub-directory of the Oracle Data Integration installation folder 
3. Run agentservice.bat with the appropriate parameters to install the service
4. Once the service is installed, you must go to Windows Service Manager to start / autostart the Service ( you can run this directly by typing services.msc in a command prompt or Run command )  

copy from : http://davidhecksel.com/blog/?p=22