Create Informatica Mappings From/To an ODBC Data Source for REST

Informatica provides a powerful, elegant means of transporting and transforming your data. By utilizing the CData ODBC 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.

Connect to REST as an ODBC Data Source

Information for connecting to REST follows, along with different instructions for configuring a DSN in Windows and Linux environments.

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.

Windows

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

Linux

If you are installing the CData ODBC Driver for REST in a Linux environment, the driver installation predefines a system DSN. You can modify the DSN by editing the system data sources file (/etc/odbc.ini) and defining the required connection properties.

/etc/odbc.ini

[CData REST Source]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for REST
Description = My Description
DataModel = Relational
URI = C:/people.xml
Format = XML

For specific information on using these configuration files, please refer to the help documentation (installed and found online).

Create a Linked Table to people Data

Follow the steps below to create a linked table, which enables you to access live people data.

Create the ODBC Connection

Follow the steps below to connect to REST in Informatica PowerCenter:

1. In the Informatica Developer tool connect to your repository and create a project.
2. In the Connection Explorer pane, right-click and click Create a Connection.
3. In the New Database Connection wizard that is displayed, enter a name and Id for the connection and in the Type menu select ODBC.
4. In the Connection String property, enter the DSN.

NOTE: If you are working in a Linux operating system, set the Driver Manager for Linux property to unixODBC 2.3.x.

Create the REST Data Object

After you have created an ODBC connection to REST, you can now access REST entities in Informatica. Follow the steps below to add people entities to your project.

1. In the Object Explorer, right-click your project and then click New -> Data Object.
2. In the wizard that is displayed, select the Relational Data Object option.
3. Click the Browse button next to the Connection box and select the ODBC connection you created in the previous step.
4. Select the option to create a data object from an existing resource and click the Browse button next to the Resource box.
5. In the dialog that is displayed, clear the Show Default Schema Only option and expand the node for the ODBC connection. Select the entity that you want. 👁 The driver models REST entities as relational tables. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

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

👁 Table data and metadata in the Data Viewer. (Salesforce is shown.)

Create the 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.)