Access Retently Data in Mule Applications Using the CData JDBC Driver

The CData API Driver for JDBC connects Retently data to Mule applications enabling read functionality with familiar SQL queries. The JDBC Driver allows users to easily create Mule applications to backup, transform, report, and analyze Retently data.

This article demonstrates how to use the CData API Driver for JDBC inside of a Mule project to create a Web interface for Retently data. The application created allows you to request Retently data using an HTTP request and have the results returned as JSON. The exact same procedure outlined below can be used with any CData JDBC Driver to create a Web interface for the hundreds of available data sources.

1. Create a new Mule Project in Anypoint Studio.
2. Add an HTTP Connector to the Message Flow.
3. Configure the address for the HTTP Connector. 👁 Add and Configure the HTTP Connector
   
4. Add a Database Select Connector to the same flow, after the HTTP Connector.
5. Create a new Connection (or edit an existing one) and configure the properties.
   • Set Connection to "Generic Connection"
   • Select the CData JDBC Driver JAR file in the Required Libraries section (e.g. cdata.jdbc.api.jar). 👁 Adding the JAR file (Salesforce is shown).
     
   • Set the URL to the connection string for Retently

     Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Retently Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Retently.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Retently (see below).

     Retently API Profile Settings

     Log into your Retently account and navigate to the OAuth settings page to register an application and receive a Client ID and Client Secret.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

     For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Retently 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.

   • Set the Driver class name to cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver. 👁 A configured Database Connection (Salesforce is shown).
     
   • Click Test Connection.
6. Set the SQL Query Text to a SQL query to request Retently data. For example:

   SELECT Id, Value FROM Campaigns WHERE Id = 'campaign_123'

   👁 Configure the Select object (Salesforce is Shown)
   
7. Add a Transform Message Component to the flow.
8. Set the Output script to the following to convert the payload to JSON:

   %dw 2.0
   output application/json
   ---
   payload
    

   👁 Add the Transform Message Component to the Flow
   
9. To view your Retently data, navigate to the address you configured for the HTTP Connector (localhost:8081 by default): http://localhost:8081. The Retently data is available as JSON in your Web browser and any other tools capable of consuming JSON endpoints.

At this point, you have a simple Web interface for working with Retently data (as JSON data) in custom apps and a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools. Download a free, 30 day trial of the JDBC Driver for Retently and see the CData difference in your Mule Applications today.