Build Data Flows from SQL Server to REST through SSIS

SQL Server databases are commonly used to store enterprise records. It is often necessary to move this data to other locations. The CData SSIS Task for REST allows you to easily transfer REST data. In this article you will export data from SQL Server to REST.

Add Source and Destination Components

To get started, add a new ADO.NET Source control and a new REST Destination control to the data flow task.

Configure the ADO.NET Source

Follow the steps below to specify properties required to connect to the SQL Server instance.

1. Open the ADO.NET Source and add a new connection. Enter your server and database information here.
2. In the Data access mode menu, select "Table or view" and select the table or view to export into REST.
3. Close the ADO NET Source wizard and connect it to the destination component.

Create a New Connection Manager for REST

Follow the steps below to set required connection properties in the Connection Manager.

1. Create a new connection manager: In the Connection Manager window, right-click and then click New Connection. The Add SSIS Connection Manager dialog is displayed.
2. Select CData REST Connection Manager in the menu.
3. Configure the connection properties.

   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.

Configure the REST Destination

In the destination component Connection Manager, define mappings from the SQL Server source table into the REST destination table and the action you want to perform on the REST data. In this article, you will insert people entities to REST.

1. Double-click the REST destination to open the destination component editor.
2. In the Connection Managers tab, select the connection manager previously created.
3. In the Use a Table, menu, select people. In the Action menu, select Insert. 👁 The destination table and action to be performed.
   
4. On the Column Mappings tab, configure the mappings from the input columns to the destination columns. 👁 The mappings from the SQL Server source to the SSIS destination component.
   

Run the Project

You can now run the project. After the SSIS Task has finished executing, data from your SQL table will be exported to the chosen table.