Integrating IBM Cloud Object Storage Data in Talend Cloud Data Management Platform

Qlik's Talend Cloud Data Management Platform supports various data environments, enabling analytics for smarter decisions, operational data sharing, data and application modernization, and establishing data excellence for risk reduction. When paired with the CData JDBC Driver for IBM Cloud Object Storage, you can improve data integration, quality, and governance for your IBM Cloud Object Storage Data. This article shows how you can easily integrate to IBM Cloud Object Storage using a CData JDBC Driver in Talend Cloud Data Management, and then view the data for simultaneous use in your workflow.

Prerequisites

Before connecting the CData JDBC Driver to view and work with your data in Talend Cloud Data Management Platform, make sure to download and install the latest version of Talend Studio on your system. Also, ensure that you have the required prerequisites.

1. A Talend Cloud Data Management account with appropriate permissions.
2. The CData JDBC Driver for IBM Cloud Object Storage, which can be downloaded from the CData website.

Connect to IBM Cloud Object Storage in Talend as a JDBC data source

Access Talend Data Management Cloud

1. Run the Talend Cloud Data Management Platform installed on your local system and click on Other Login Mode. 👁 Log into Talend Cloud Data Management Platform locally
   
2. Click on Manage Connections. Set Repository to "Local" and enter the Name, Description and User E-mail in the respective spaces. Set the Workspace path and click on OK. 👁 Manage a connection.
   👁 Create a connection in Talend Data Management Cloud
   
3. Now, select the Create a new project radio button to add a new project name and click on Create. 👁 Create a new project.
   
4. The new project should appear under the Select an existing project section. Click on Open. The Talend Cloud Data Management Platform workspace opens up. 👁 Open the Talend Cloud Data Management Platform workspace.
   

Create a new connection

1. In the navigation pane, locate and expand the Metadata dropdown. Right-click on Db Connections and select Create Connection. 👁 Create a new connection in the Talend platform under Db connections.
   
2. Search for and select 'JDBC' in the Find section of the Database Connection window. Then, click on Finish. 👁 Search and select the JDBC connector.
   
3. Enter the Name, Purpose and Description of the new database in Talend where you need to load the IBM Cloud Object Storage data. Click on Next. 👁 Enter details of the database toload the source data.
   
4. Generate a JDBC URL for connecting to IBM Cloud Object Storage, beginning with jdbc:ibmcloudobjectstorage: followed by a series of semicolon-separated connection string properties.

   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 JDBC URL is below:

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

5. Enter the JDBC URL copied from CData JDBC Driver for IBM Cloud Object Storage in Edit new database. 👁 Enter the JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown).
   

6. Click on the "(+) Add" button under Drivers. A 'newLine' will appear in the Drivers board. Click on (...) at the end of the new line, select the Install a new module radio button, and click on (...) to add the path to the JAR file, located in the 'lib' subfolder of the installation directory. Click on OK. 👁 Add a new line in Drivers board to add the path to the IBM Cloud Object Storage JAR file (Salesforce is shown).
   👁 The lib folder which contains the IBM Cloud Object Storage JAR file (Salesforce is shown).
   👁 Add the JAR installation path in 'Install a new module' (Salesforce is shown).
   
7. Select the Driver Class as cdata.jdbc.ibmcloudobjectstorage (JAR file obtained from your installation directory given in the previous step). 👁 Add the Driver class.
   

Test the new connection

1. Click on Check Connection. If the entered details are correct, a "Connection successful" confirmation prompt will appear. Click on "OK" and "Finish". 👁 Check the connection.
   
2. Once the connection is established, right-click on the newly created connection and select Retrieve Schema. You can use the filters as well to retrieve the data as per your requirements. Click on Next. 👁 Retrieve schema from the datasource.
   👁 Add the necessary filters.
   
3. Expand the "CData" catalog in the Schema window and select the tables you want to import from the IBM Cloud Object Storage schema. Click on Next. 👁 Select a table from the IBM Cloud Object Storage schema.
   
4. In the next step, select the columns you want to view from the table and click on Finish. 👁 Select the necessary columns from the selected table.
   
5. All the selected tables from the IBM Cloud Object Storage schema are now populated under the Table Schemas section of the JDBC connection.
6. Right-click on any of the selected tables and click on Data Viewer to preview the data from the data source. 👁 Click on Data Viewer to view the source data.
   👁 Display the source table view.
   

Get Started Today

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData JDBC Driver for IBM Cloud Object Storage and integrate IBM Cloud Object Storage data into Talend Cloud Data Management Platform. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.