Azure Data Catalog Reporting and Star Schemas in OBIEE

The CData ODBC Driver for Azure Data Catalog is a standard database driver that can integrate real-time access to Azure Data Catalog data into your data warehouse or directly into your reporting tool. This article shows how to bypass the data warehouse and import operational Azure Data Catalog data into Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE).

See the knowledge base for ODBC integrations with ETL tools like Informatica PowerCenter. For an ETL solution into Oracle Warehouse Builder, use the driver with the Oracle ODBC Gateway to Access Azure Data Catalog Data as a Remote Oracle Database.

Connect to Azure Data Catalog as an ODBC Data Source

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

You can optionally set the following to read the different catalog data returned from Azure Data Catalog.

Connect Using OAuth Authentication

You must use OAuth to authenticate with Azure Data Catalog. OAuth requires the authenticating user to interact with Azure Data Catalog using the browser. For more information, refer to the OAuth section in the help documentation.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

Import Azure Data Catalog Metadata

Follow the steps below to use the OBIEE Client Tools to import Azure Data Catalog metadata into an OBIEE repository. You can then integrate Azure Data Catalog data into your business models.

1. Open the Administration Tool and click File -> New Repository.

2. In the Connection Type menu, select ODBC 3.5 and select the CData DSN.
3. Select the metadata types you want to import under the Relational Sources option and then select Azure Data Catalog tables. 👁 Tables to be imported into the repository. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

You can now create star schemas based on Azure Data Catalog tables: 👁 Fact and dimension tables. (Salesforce is shown.)