Configure the CData JDBC Driver for SAP in a Connection Pool in Tomcat

The CData JDBC Drivers support standard JDBC interfaces to integrate with Web applications running on the JVM. This article details how to connect to SAP data from a connection pool in Tomcat.

Getting Started

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Connect to SAP Data through a Connection Pool in Tomcat

1. Copy the CData JAR and CData .lic file to $CATALINA_HOME/lib. The CData JAR is located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
2. Add a definition of the resource to the context. Specify the JDBC URL here.

   The driver supports connecting to an SAP system using the SAP Java Connector (SAP JCo). Install the files (sapjco3.jar and sapjco3.dll) to the appropriate directory for the hosting application or platform. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for information on using the SAP JCo files.

   In addition, you can connect to an SAP system using Web services (SOAP). To use Web services, you must enable SOAP access to your SAP system and set the Client, RFCUrl, User, and Password properties, under the Authentication section.

   For more information, see this guide on obtaining the connection properties needed to connect to any SAP system.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

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

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.saperp.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.)
   

   You can see the JDBC URL specified in the resource definition below.

   <Resource name="jdbc/saperp" auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource" driverClassName="cdata.jdbc.saperp.SAPERPDriver" factory="org.apache.tomcat.jdbc.pool.DataSourceFactory" url="jdbc:saperp:Host=sap.mydomain.com;User=EXT90033;Password=xxx;Client=800;System Number=09;ConnectionType=Classic;Location=C:/mysapschemafolder;" maxActive="20" maxIdle="10" maxWait="-1" />
   

   To allow a single application to access SAP data, add the code above to the context.xml in the application's META-INF directory.

   For a shared resource configuration, add the code above to the context.xml located in $CATALINA_BASE/conf. A shared resource configuration provides connectivity to SAP for all applications.

3. Add a reference to the resource to the web.xml for the application.

    SAP data JSP
    jdbc/SAPERP
    javax.sql.DataSource
    Container
   
   

4. Initialize connections from the connection pool:

   Context initContext = new InitialContext();
   Context envContext = (Context)initContext.lookup("java:/comp/env");
   DataSource ds = (DataSource)envContext.lookup("jdbc/SAPERP");
   Connection conn = ds.getConnection();
    

More Tomcat Integration

The steps above show how to connect to SAP data in a simple connection pooling scenario. For more use cases and information, see the JNDI Datasource How-To in the Tomcat documentation.