Create Informatica Mappings From/To a JDBC Data Source for REST

Informatica provides a powerful, elegant means of transporting and transforming your data. By utilizing the CData JDBC Driver for REST, 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 REST 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 REST 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.rest.RESTDriver

4. In the Connection String property, enter the JDBC URL, using the connection properties for REST.

   See the Getting Started chapter in the data provider documentation to authenticate to your data source: The data provider models REST APIs as bidirectional database tables and XML/JSON files as read-only views (local files, files stored on popular cloud services, and FTP servers). The major authentication schemes are supported, including HTTP Basic, Digest, NTLM, OAuth, and FTP. See the Getting Started chapter in the data provider documentation for authentication guides.

   After setting the and providing any authentication values, set to "XML" or "JSON" and set to more closely match the data representation to the structure of your data.

   The property is the controlling property over how your data is represented into tables and toggles the following basic configurations.

   • Document (default): Model a top-level, document view of your REST data. The data provider returns nested elements as aggregates of data.
   • FlattenedDocuments: Implicitly join nested documents and their parents into a single table.
   • Relational: Return individual, related tables from hierarchical data. The tables contain a primary key and a foreign key that links to the parent document.

   See the Modeling REST Data chapter for more information on configuring the relational representation. You will also find the sample data used in the following examples. The data includes entries for people, the cars they own, and various maintenance services performed on those cars.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

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

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.rest.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:rest:DataModel=Relational;URI=C:/people.xml;Format=XML;

Browse REST Tables

After you have added the driver JAR to the classpath and created a JDBC connection, you can now access REST entities in Informatica. Follow the steps below to connect to REST and browse REST 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 REST entities as relational tables. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

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

Create REST Data Objects

Follow the steps below to add REST tables to your project:

1. Select tables in REST, then right-click a table in REST, 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 REST source to a mapping:

   1. In the Object Explorer, right-click your project and then click New -> Mapping.
   2. Expand the node for the REST 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 REST table in the mapping. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

   Follow the steps below to map REST 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 REST 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 REST data, right-click in the workspace and then click Run Mapping.

   👁 The completed mapping. (Salesforce is shown.)