Connect to BigCommerce Data as an External Source in Dremio

The CData JDBC Driver for BigCommerce implements JDBC Standards and allows various applications, including Dremio, to work with live BigCommerce data. Dremio is a data lakehouse platform designed to empower self-service, interactive analytics on the data lake. With the CData JDBC driver, you can include live BigCommerce data as a part of your enterprise data lake. This article describes how to connect to BigCommerce data from Dremio as an External Source.

The CData JDBC Driver enables high-speed access to live BigCommerce data in Dremio. Once you install the driver, authenticate with BigCommerce and gain immediate access to BigCommerce data within your data lake. By surfacing BigCommerce data using native data types and handling complex filters, aggregations, & other operations automatically, the CData JDBC Driver grants seamless access to BigCommerce data.

Prerequisites

This article assumes you are utilizing Docker to run Dremio. You can create a Docker container with the Dremio service using a command similar to the follow:

docker run -d --name dremio -p 9047:9047 -p 31010:31010 dremio/dremio-oss

Where dremio is the name of the container, 9047 is the container's port for the Dremio web interface and 31010 is the port that maps to the Dremio query service. dremio/dremio-oss specifies the image to use.

Build the ARP Connector

To use the CData JDBC Driver in Dremio, you need to build an Advanced Relation Pushdown (ARP) Connector. You can view the source code for the Connector on GitHub or download the ZIP file (GitHub.com) directly. Once you copy or extract the files, run the following command from the root directory of the connector (the directory containing the pom.xml file) to build the connector.

mvn clean install

NOTE: The CData ARP Connectors are build to be compiled with Java 11. Be sure to install Java 11 and use the correct version. You can update your Java version using a command similar to the following:

sudo update-alternatives --config java

Once the JAR file for the connector is built (in the target directory), you are ready to copy the ARP connector and JDBC Driver to your Dremio instance.

Installing the Connector and JDBC Driver

Install the ARP Connector to %DREMIO_HOME%/jars/ and the JDBC Driver for BigCommerce to %DREMIO_HOME%/jars/3rdparty. You can use commands similar to the following:

ARP Connector

docker cp PATH\TO\dremio-bigcommerce-plugin-{DREMIO_VERSION}.jar dremio_image_name:/opt/dremio/jars/

JDBC Driver for BigCommerce

docker cp PATH\TO\cdata.jdbc.bigcommerce.jar dremio_image_name:/opt/dremio/jars/3rdparty/

Connecting to BigCommerce

BigCommerce will now appear as an External Source option in Dremio. The ARP Connector built uses a JDBC URL to connect to BigCommerce data. The JDBC Driver has a built-in connection string designer that you can use (see below).

👁 External Sources via CData JDBC Drivers (Amazon DynamoDB & Couchbase are shown)

Built-in Connection String Designer

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

java -jar cdata.jdbc.bigcommerce.jar

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

BigCommerce authentication is based on the standard OAuth flow. To authenticate, you must initially create an app via the Big Commerce developer platform where you can obtain an OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL. These three parameters will be set as connection properties to your driver.

Additionally, in order to connect to your BigCommerce Store, you will need your StoreId. To find your Store Id please follow these steps:

1. Log in to your BigCommerce account.
2. From the Home Page, select Advanced Settings > API Accounts.
3. Click Create API Account.
4. A text box named API Path will appear on your screen.
5. Inside you can see a URL of the following structure: https://api.bigcommerce.com/stores/{Store Id}/v3.
6. As demonstrated above, your Store Id will be between the 'stores/' and '/v3' path paramters.
7. Once you have retrieved your Store Id you can either click Cancel or proceed in creating an API Account in case you do not have one already.

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

NOTE: To use the JDBC Driver in Dremio, you will need a license (full or trial) and a Runtime Key (RTK). For more information on obtaining this license (or a trial), contact our sales team.

Add the Runtime Key (RTK) to the JDBC URL. You will end up with a JDBC URL similar to the following:

jdbc:bigcommerce:RTK=5246...;OAuthClientId=YourClientId; OAuthClientSecret=YourClientSecret; StoreId='YourStoreID'; CallbackURL='http://localhost:33333';InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;

Access BigCommerce as an External Source

To add BigCommerce as an External Source, click to add a new source and select BigCommerce. Copy the JDBC URL and paste it into the New BigCommerce Source wizard.

👁 Entering the JDBC URL (Amazon DynamoDB is shown)

Save the connection and you are ready to query live BigCommerce data in Dremio, easily incorporating BigCommerce data into your data lake.

👁 Live data in Dremio (Amazon DynamoDB is shown)

More Information & Free Trial

Using the CData JDBC Driver for BigCommerce in Dremio, you can incorporate live BigCommerce data into your data lake. Check out our CData JDBC Driver for BigCommerce page for more information about connecting to BigCommerce. Download a free, 30 day trial of the CData JDBC Driver for BigCommerce and get started today.