Create Informatica Mappings From/To a JDBC Data Source for IBM Cloud Object Storage

Informatica provides a powerful, elegant means of transporting and transforming your data. By utilizing the CData JDBC Driver for IBM Cloud Object Storage, you are gaining access to a driver based on industry-proven standards that integrates seamlessly with Informatica's powerful data transportation and manipulation features. This tutorial shows how to transfer and browse IBM Cloud Object Storage data in Informatica PowerCenter.

Deploy the Driver

To deploy the driver to the Informatica PowerCenter server, copy the CData JAR and .lic file, located in the lib subfolder in the installation directory, to the following folder: Informatica-installation-directory\services\shared\jars\thirdparty.

To work with IBM Cloud Object Storage data in the Developer tool, you will need to copy the CData JAR and .lic file, located in the lib subfolder in the installation directory, into the following folders:

• Informatica-installation-directory\client\externaljdbcjars
• Informatica-installation-directory\externaljdbcjars

Create the JDBC Connection

Follow the steps below to connect from Informatica Developer:

1. In the Connection Explorer pane, right-click your domain and click Create a Connection.
2. In the New Database Connection wizard that is displayed, enter a name and Id for the connection and in the Type menu select JDBC.
3. In the JDBC Driver Class Name property, enter:

   cdata.jdbc.ibmcloudobjectstorage.IBMCloudObjectStorageDriver

4. In the Connection String property, enter the JDBC URL, using the connection properties for IBM Cloud Object Storage.

   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.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

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

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.ibmcloudobjectstorage.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.)
   

   A typical connection string is below:

   jdbc:ibmcloudobjectstorage:ApiKey=myApiKey;CloudObjectStorageCRN=MyInstanceCRN;Region=myRegion;OAuthClientId=MyOAuthClientId;OAuthClientSecret=myOAuthClientSecret;

Browse IBM Cloud Object Storage Tables

After you have added the driver JAR to the classpath and created a JDBC connection, you can now access IBM Cloud Object Storage entities in Informatica. Follow the steps below to connect to IBM Cloud Object Storage and browse IBM Cloud Object Storage tables:

1. Connect to your repository.
2. In the Connection Explorer, right-click the connection and click Connect.
3. Clear the Show Default Schema Only option. 👁 The driver models IBM Cloud Object Storage entities as relational tables. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

You can now browse IBM Cloud Object Storage tables in the Data Viewer: Right-click the node for the table and then click Open. On the Data Viewer view, click Run.

Create IBM Cloud Object Storage Data Objects

Follow the steps below to add IBM Cloud Object Storage tables to your project:

1. Select tables in IBM Cloud Object Storage, then right-click a table in IBM Cloud Object Storage, and click Add to Project.
2. In the resulting dialog, select the option to create a data object for each resource.
3. In the Select Location dialog, select your project.

   Create a Mapping

   Follow the steps below to add the IBM Cloud Object Storage source to a mapping:

   1. In the Object Explorer, right-click your project and then click New -> Mapping.
   2. Expand the node for the IBM Cloud Object Storage connection and then drag the data object for the table onto the editor.
   3. In the dialog that appears, select the Read option.
   👁 The source IBM Cloud Object Storage table in the mapping. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

   Follow the steps below to map IBM Cloud Object Storage columns to a flat file:

   1. In the Object Explorer, right-click your project and then click New -> Data Object.
   2. Select Flat File Data Object -> Create as Empty -> Fixed Width.
   3. In the properties for the IBM Cloud Object Storage object, select the rows you want, right-click, and then click copy. Paste the rows into the flat file properties.
   4. Drag the flat file data object onto the mapping. In the dialog that appears, select the Write option.
   5. Click and drag to connect columns.

   To transfer IBM Cloud Object Storage data, right-click in the workspace and then click Run Mapping.

   👁 The completed mapping. (Salesforce is shown.)