Access IBM Cloud Object Storage Data in Mule Applications Using the CData JDBC Driver

The CData JDBC Driver for IBM Cloud Object Storage connects IBM Cloud Object Storage data to Mule applications enabling read functionality with familiar SQL queries. The JDBC Driver allows users to easily create Mule applications to backup, transform, report, and analyze IBM Cloud Object Storage data.

This article demonstrates how to use the CData JDBC Driver for IBM Cloud Object Storage inside of a Mule project to create a Web interface for IBM Cloud Object Storage data. The application created allows you to request IBM Cloud Object Storage data using an HTTP request and have the results returned as JSON. The exact same procedure outlined below can be used with any CData JDBC Driver to create a Web interface for the hundreds of available data sources.

1. Create a new Mule Project in Anypoint Studio.
2. Add an HTTP Connector to the Message Flow.
3. Configure the address for the HTTP Connector. 👁 Add and Configure the HTTP Connector
   
4. Add a Database Select Connector to the same flow, after the HTTP Connector.
5. Create a new Connection (or edit an existing one) and configure the properties.
   • Set Connection to "Generic Connection"
   • Select the CData JDBC Driver JAR file in the Required Libraries section (e.g. cdata.jdbc.ibmcloudobjectstorage.jar). 👁 Adding the JAR file (Salesforce is shown).
     
   • Set the URL to the connection string 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.

   • Set the Driver class name to cdata.jdbc.ibmcloudobjectstorage.IBMCloudObjectStorageDriver. 👁 A configured Database Connection (Salesforce is shown).
     
   • Click Test Connection.
6. Set the SQL Query Text to a SQL query to request IBM Cloud Object Storage data. For example:

   SELECT Key, Etag FROM Objects WHERE Bucket = 'someBucket'

   👁 Configure the Select object (Salesforce is Shown)
   
7. Add a Transform Message Component to the flow.
8. Set the Output script to the following to convert the payload to JSON:

   %dw 2.0
   output application/json
   ---
   payload
    

   👁 Add the Transform Message Component to the Flow
   
9. To view your IBM Cloud Object Storage data, navigate to the address you configured for the HTTP Connector (localhost:8081 by default): http://localhost:8081. The IBM Cloud Object Storage data is available as JSON in your Web browser and any other tools capable of consuming JSON endpoints.

At this point, you have a simple Web interface for working with IBM Cloud Object Storage data (as JSON data) in custom apps and a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools. Download a free, 30 day trial of the JDBC Driver for IBM Cloud Object Storage and see the CData difference in your Mule Applications today.