ETL NASA in Oracle Data Integrator

Leverage existing skills by using the JDBC standard to connect to NASA: Through drop-in integration into ETL tools like Oracle Data Integrator (ODI), the CData JDBC Driver for NASA connects real-time NASA data to your data warehouse, business intelligence, and Big Data technologies.

JDBC connectivity enables you to work with NASA just as you would any other database in ODI. As with an RDBMS, you can use the driver to connect directly to the NASA APIs in real time instead of working with flat files.

This article covers a JDBC-based ETL -- NASA to Oracle. After reverse engineering a data model of NASA entities, you will create a mapping and select a data loading strategy -- since the driver supports SQL-92, this last step can easily be accomplished by selecting the built-in SQL to SQL Loading Knowledge Module.

Install the Driver

To install the driver, copy the driver JAR (cdata.jdbc.api.jar) and .lic file (cdata.jdbc.api.lic), located in the installation folder, into the ODI appropriate directory:

• UNIX/Linux without Agent: ~/.odi/oracledi/userlib
• UNIX/Linux with Agent: ~/.odi/oracledi/userlib and $ODI_HOME/odi/agent/lib
• Windows without Agent: %APPDATA%\Roaming\odi\oracledi\userlib
• Windows with Agent: %APPDATA%\odi\oracledi\userlib and %APPDATA%\odi\agent\lib

Restart ODI to complete the installation.

Reverse Engineer a Model

Reverse engineering the model retrieves metadata about the driver's relational view of NASA data. After reverse engineering, you can query real-time NASA data and create mappings based on NASA tables.

1. In ODI, connect to your repository and click New -> Model and Topology Objects. 👁 Create a New Model
   
2. On the Model screen of the resulting dialog, enter the following information:
   • Name: Enter API.
   • Technology: Select Generic SQL (for ODI Version 12.2+, select Microsoft SQL Server).
   • Logical Schema: Enter API.
   • Context: Select Global.
   👁 Configuring the Model
   
3. On the Data Server screen of the resulting dialog, enter the following information:
   • Name: Enter API.
   • Driver List: Select Oracle JDBC Driver.
   • Driver: Enter cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver
   • URL: Enter the JDBC URL containing the connection string.

     Using API Key Authentication

     Most NASA API endpoints (APOD, NeoWS, DONKI, TechTransfer) require a NASA API key. Register for a free key at https://api.nasa.gov. The default DEMO_KEY provides limited access (30 requests/hour, 50 requests/day); a registered key allows 1,000 requests/hour.

     The following endpoints do not require an API key and work without authentication: EONET (Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker), EPIC (Earth Polychromatic Imaging Camera), NASA Image and Video Library, and TechPort.

     After obtaining your API key, set the following connection properties:

     • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
     • APIKey: Set this to your NASA API key. Use DEMO_KEY for limited testing.

     Example Connection String

     Profile=C:\profiles\NASA.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;APIKey=YOUR_NASA_API_KEY
     

     Connecting to NASA

     Once the authentication is configured, you can connect to NASA and query data from any of the available tables such as AstronomyPictureOfDay, NearEarthObjectFeed, EonetEvents, and NasaImageLibrary.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

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

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.api.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.)
     

     Below is a typical connection string:

     jdbc:api:Profile=C:\profiles\NASA.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;APIKey=YOUR_NASA_API_KEY
     

   👁 Configuring the Data Server
   
4. On the Physical Schema screen, enter the following information:
   • Name: Select from the Drop Down menu.
   • Database (Catalog): Enter CData.
   • Owner (Schema): If you select a Schema for NASA, enter the Schema selected, otherwise enter API.
   • Database (Work Catalog): Enter CData.
   • Owner (Work Schema): If you select a Schema for NASA, enter the Schema selected, otherwise enter API.
   👁 Configuring the Physical Schema
   
5. In the opened model click Reverse Engineer to retrieve the metadata for NASA tables. 👁 Reverse Engineer the Model
   

Edit and Save NASA Data

After reverse engineering you can now work with NASA data in ODI. To view NASA data, expand the Models accordion in the Designer navigator, right-click a table, and click View data. 👁 Viewing the data.

Create an ETL Project

Follow the steps below to create an ETL from NASA. You will load AstronomyPictureOfDay entities into the sample data warehouse included in the ODI Getting Started VM.

1. Open SQL Developer and connect to your Oracle database. Right-click the node for your database in the Connections pane and click new SQL Worksheet.

   Alternatively you can use SQLPlus. From a command prompt enter the following:

   sqlplus / as sysdba
   

2. Enter the following query to create a new target table in the sample data warehouse, which is in the ODI_DEMO schema. The following query defines a few columns that match the AstronomyPictureOfDay table in NASA:

   CREATE TABLE ODI_DEMO.TRG_ASTRONOMYPICTUREOFDAY ( NUMBER(20,0), VARCHAR2(255));
   

3. In ODI expand the Models accordion in the Designer navigator and double-click the Sales Administration node in the ODI_DEMO folder. The model is opened in the Model Editor.
4. Click Reverse Engineer. The TRG_ASTRONOMYPICTUREOFDAY table is added to the model.
5. Right-click the Mappings node in your project and click New Mapping. Enter a name for the mapping and clear the Create Empty Dataset option. The Mapping Editor is displayed.
6. Drag the TRG_ASTRONOMYPICTUREOFDAY table from the Sales Administration model onto the mapping.
7. Drag the AstronomyPictureOfDay table from the NASA model onto the mapping.
8. Click the source connector point and drag to the target connector point. The Attribute Matching dialog is displayed. For this example, use the default options. The target expressions are then displayed in the properties for the target columns.
9. Open the Physical tab of the Mapping Editor and click ASTRONOMYPICTUREOFDAY_AP in TARGET_GROUP.
10. In the ASTRONOMYPICTUREOFDAY_AP properties, select LKM SQL to SQL (Built-In) on the Loading Knowledge Module tab. 👁 SQL-based access to NASA enables you to use standard database-to-database knowledge modules.
    

You can then run the mapping to load NASA data into Oracle.