Configure the CData JDBC Driver for Avalara AvaTax in a Connection Pool in Tomcat

The CData JDBC Drivers support standard JDBC interfaces to integrate with Web applications running on the JVM. This article details how to connect to Avalara AvaTax data from a connection pool in Tomcat.

Connect to Avalara AvaTax Data through a Connection Pool in Tomcat

1. Copy the CData JAR and CData .lic file to $CATALINA_HOME/lib. The CData JAR is located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
2. Add a definition of the resource to the context. Specify the JDBC URL here.

   The primary method for performing basic authentication is to provide your login credentials, as follows:

   • User: Set this to your username.
   • Password: Set this to your password.

   Optionally, if you are making use of a sandbox environment, set the following:

   • UseSandbox: Set this to true if you are authenticating with a sandbox account.

   Authenticating Using Account Number and License Key

   Alternatively, you can authenticate using your account number and license key. Connect to data using the following:

   • AccountId: Set this to your Account Id. The Account Id is listed in the upper right hand corner of the admin console.
   • LicenseKey: Set this to your Avalara Avatax license key. You can generate a license key by logging into Avalara Avatax as an account administrator and navigating to Settings -> Reset License Key.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

   For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Avalara AvaTax JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.avalaraavatax.jar
   

   Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

   👁 Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)
   

   You can see the JDBC URL specified in the resource definition below.

   <Resource name="jdbc/avalaraavatax" auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource" driverClassName="cdata.jdbc.avalaraavatax.AvalaraAvataxDriver" factory="org.apache.tomcat.jdbc.pool.DataSourceFactory" url="jdbc:avalaraavatax:User=MyUser;Password=MyPassword;" maxActive="20" maxIdle="10" maxWait="-1" />
   

   To allow a single application to access Avalara AvaTax data, add the code above to the context.xml in the application's META-INF directory.

   For a shared resource configuration, add the code above to the context.xml located in $CATALINA_BASE/conf. A shared resource configuration provides connectivity to Avalara AvaTax for all applications.

3. Add a reference to the resource to the web.xml for the application.

    Avalara AvaTax data JSP
    jdbc/AvalaraAvatax
    javax.sql.DataSource
    Container
   
   

4. Initialize connections from the connection pool:

   Context initContext = new InitialContext();
   Context envContext = (Context)initContext.lookup("java:/comp/env");
   DataSource ds = (DataSource)envContext.lookup("jdbc/AvalaraAvatax");
   Connection conn = ds.getConnection();
    

More Tomcat Integration

The steps above show how to connect to Avalara AvaTax data in a simple connection pooling scenario. For more use cases and information, see the JNDI Datasource How-To in the Tomcat documentation.