You will find below new things that have been added to the Designer:

• You find a very cool compare job function.
• You find parameter sets - a much easier way to create and share groups of job parameters.
• You find much better search functions.
• You find the dozens of metadata import bridges for creating table definitions from products like ErWin 7 and Cognos 8 on top of the standard plugin and file metadata imports.

There is the Metadata Server in 8.0 version - You find some minor benefits from the Metadata Server such as a few reports and a browsable database repository - but to really unlock it you need to pay for a Metadata Workbench license.  That's the metadata lineage and impact analysis reporting tool for DataStage and the products it reads and writes that's better than anything MetaStage produced.[/li][/list]


Removed Functions -

These are the functions that are removed from DataStage 8:

• dssearch command line function
• dsjob "-import"
• Version Control tool
• Released jobs
• Oracle 8i native database stages
• ClickPack

The loss of the Version Control tool is not a big deal as the import/export functions have been improved.
Building a release file as an export in version 8 is easier than building it in the Version Control tool in version 7.

New Database Connector Functions - This is a big area of improvement.

• LOB/BLOC/CLOB Data: Pictures, Documents, etc., of any size can now be moved between databases. After choosing the LOB data type you can choose to pass the data inline or as a link reference.
• Reject Links: Optionally append error codes and messages, conditionally filter types of rejection, fail a job based on a percentage threshold of failures.
• Schema Reconciliation: Automatically compare your DataStage schema to the database schema and perform minor data type conversions.
• Improved SQL Builder that supports more database types.
• Test button on connectors. Test! You don't have to view data or run a job to find out if the stupid thing works.
• Drag and drop your configured database connections onto jobs.
• Before and after SQL defined per job or per node with a failure handling option. Cleaner than previous versions.
• DataStage 8 gives you access to the latest versions of databases that DataStage 7 doesnot have.
• Extra functions on all connectors includes improved reject handling, LOB support and easier stage configuration.

New Functions Existing Stages -

• Complex Flat File Stage: Multi Format File (MFF) in addition to existing cobol file support.
• Surrogate Key Generator: now maintains the key source via integrated state file or DBMS sequence.
• Lookup Stage: range lookups by defining checking high and low range fields on the input or reference data table. Updatable in memory lookups.
• Transformer Stage: new surrogate key functions Initialize() and GetNextKey().
• Enterprise FTP Stage: now choose between ftp and sftp transfer.

You can achieve most of these functions in the current version with extra coding except for in-memory lookups. This is a killer function in DataStage 8.