Joiner Transformation vs Lookup Transformation in Informatica PowerCenterIn Informatica PowerCenter, both Joiner and Lookup Transformations are used to merge data from multiple sources to produce a single set of data for further processing. However, there are significant differences between these two transformations.Joiner Transformation:A Joiner Transformation is used to join two heterogeneous sources on one or more common columns. The Joiner Transformation is an active transformation that performs joins like Inner Join, Full Outer Join, Left Outer Join, and Right Outer Join on the input data sets. For example, consider two data sources, one contains customer data, and another contains order data. We can use the Joiner Transformation to combine these data sources based on the customer ID so that the final output will have combined customer and order data.Lookup Transformation:A Lookup Transformation is used to look up data from a table or a flat file. It is useful when we need to look up values from a reference table by matching one or more columns in the source data. The Lookup Transformation is a passive transformation that does not change the number of input or output rows. For example, suppose we have a customer data source with customer details, and we need to populate the city and state of the customer based on the zip code. We can use the Lookup Transformation to look up the zip code in a reference table containing zip code details and retrieve the corresponding city and state.When to use which transformation?We should use the Joiner Transformation when we want to combine data from two or more sources based on one or more common columns. It is useful when we want to perform join operations with multiple input pipelines.We should use the Lookup Transformation when we want to retrieve data from a reference table to enrich the source data. It is useful when we want to look up a few specific columns from a large reference table.References:1. Joiner Transformation - Informatica2. Lookup Transformation - Informatica