DataBind IBM Cloud Object Storage Data to the DevExpress Data Grid

The ADO.NET Provider for IBM Cloud Object Storage by CData incorporates conventional ADO.NET data access components compatible with third-party controls. You can adhere to the standard ADO.NET data binding procedures to establish two-way access to real-time data through UI controls. This article will demonstrate the utilization of CData components for data binding with DevExpress UI Controls (Windows Forms and Web controls), specifically binding to a chart that visualizes live data.

Register a New Instance of Cloud Object Storage

If you do not already have Cloud Object Storage in your IBM Cloud account, follow the procedure below to install an instance of SQL Query in your account:

1. Log in to your IBM Cloud account.
2. Navigate to the

Connecting using OAuth Authentication

There are certain connection properties you need to set before you can connect. You can obtain these as follows:

API Key

To connect with IBM Cloud Object Storage, you need an API Key. You can obtain this as follows:

1. Log in to your IBM Cloud account.
2. Navigate to the Platform API Keys page.
3. On the middle-right corner click "Create an IBM Cloud API Key" to create a new API Key.
4. In the pop-up window, specify the API Key name and click "Create". Note the API Key as you can never access it again from the dashboard.

Cloud Object Storage CRN

If you have multiple accounts, specify the CloudObjectStorageCRN explicitly. To find the appropriate value, you can:

• Query the Services view. This will list your IBM Cloud Object Storage instances along with the CRN for each.
• Locate the CRN directly in IBM Cloud. To do so, navigate to your IBM Cloud Dashboard. In the Resource List, Under Storage, select your Cloud Object Storage resource to get its CRN.

Connecting to Data

You can now set the following to connect to data:

• InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
• ApiKey: Set this to your API key which was noted during setup.
• CloudObjectStorageCRN (Optional): Set this to the cloud object storage CRN you want to work with. While the connector attempts to retrieve this automatically, specifying this explicitly is recommended if you have more than Cloud Object Storage account.

When you connect, the connector completes the OAuth process.

1. Extracts the access token and authenticates requests.
2. Saves OAuth values in OAuthSettingsLocation to be persisted across connections.

Windows Forms Controls

The code below shows how to populate a DevExpress chart with IBM Cloud Object Storage data. The IBMCloudObjectStorageDataAdapter binds to the Series property of the chart control. The Diagram property of the control defines the x- and y-axes as the column names.

using (IBMCloudObjectStorageConnection connection = new IBMCloudObjectStorageConnection(
"ApiKey=myApiKey;CloudObjectStorageCRN=MyInstanceCRN;Region=myRegion;OAuthClientId=MyOAuthClientId;OAuthClientSecret=myOAuthClientSecret;")) {
 IBMCloudObjectStorageDataAdapter dataAdapter = new IBMCloudObjectStorageDataAdapter(
 "SELECT Key, Etag FROM Objects WHERE Bucket = 'someBucket'", connection);
 
 DataTable table = new DataTable();
 dataAdapter.Fill(table);
 DevExpress.XtraCharts.Series series = new DevExpress.XtraCharts.Series();
 chartControl1.Series.Add(series);
 series.DataSource = table;
 series.ValueDataMembers.AddRange(new string[] { "Etag" });
 series.ArgumentScaleType = DevExpress.XtraCharts.ScaleType.Qualitative;
 series.ArgumentDataMember = "Key";
 series.ValueScaleType = DevExpress.XtraCharts.ScaleType.Numerical;
 chartControl1.Legend.Visibility = DevExpress.Utils.DefaultBoolean.False;
 ((DevExpress.XtraCharts.SideBySideBarSeriesView)series.View).ColorEach = true; 
}

Web Controls

The code below shows how to populate a DevExpress Web control with IBM Cloud Object Storage data. The IBMCloudObjectStorageDataAdapter binds to the Series property of the chart; the Diagram property defines the x- and y-axes as the column names.

using DevExpress.XtraCharts;

using (IBMCloudObjectStorageConnection connection = new IBMCloudObjectStorageConnection(
"ApiKey=myApiKey;CloudObjectStorageCRN=MyInstanceCRN;Region=myRegion;OAuthClientId=MyOAuthClientId;OAuthClientSecret=myOAuthClientSecret;"))
{
 IBMCloudObjectStorageDataAdapter IBMCloudObjectStorageDataAdapter1 = new IBMCloudObjectStorageDataAdapter("SELECT Key, Etag FROM Objects WHERE Bucket = 'someBucket'", connection);
 DataTable table = new DataTable();
 IBMCloudObjectStorageDataAdapter1.Fill(table);
 DevExpress.XtraCharts.Series series = new Series("Series1", ViewType.Bar);
 WebChartControl1.Series.Add(series);
 series.DataSource = table;
 series.ValueDataMembers.AddRange(new string[] { "Etag" });
 series.ArgumentScaleType = ScaleType.Qualitative;
 series.ArgumentDataMember = "Key";
 series.ValueScaleType = ScaleType.Numerical;
 ((DevExpress.XtraCharts.SideBySideBarSeriesView)series.View).ColorEach = true;
}