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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/snowflake-jdbc-informatica.rst

⇱ Create Informatica Mappings From/To a JDBC Data Source for Snowflake

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

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Create Snowflake data objects in Informatica using the standard JDBC connection process: Copy the JAR and then connect.

Informatica provides a powerful, elegant means of transporting and transforming your data. By utilizing the CData JDBC Driver for Snowflake, 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 Snowflake data in Informatica PowerCenter.

About Snowflake Data Integration

CData simplifies access and integration of live Snowflake data. Our customers leverage CData connectivity to:

  • Reads and write Snowflake data quickly and efficiently.
  • Dynamically obtain metadata for the specified Warehouse, Database, and Schema.
  • Authenticate in a variety of ways, including OAuth, OKTA, Azure AD, Azure Managed Service Identity, PingFederate, private key, and more.

Many CData users use CData solutions to access Snowflake from their preferred tools and applications, and replicate data from their disparate systems into Snowflake for comprehensive warehousing and analytics.

For more information on integrating Snowflake with CData solutions, refer to our blog: https://www.cdata.com/blog/snowflake-integrations.


Getting Started


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 Snowflake 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.snowflake.SnowflakeDriver
  4. In the Connection String property, enter the JDBC URL, using the connection properties for Snowflake.

    To connect to Snowflake:

    1. Set User and Password to your Snowflake credentials and set the AuthScheme property to PASSWORD or OKTA.
    2. Set URL to the URL of the Snowflake instance (i.e.: https://myaccount.snowflakecomputing.com).
    3. Set Warehouse to the Snowflake warehouse.
    4. (Optional) Set Account to your Snowflake account if your URL does not conform to the format above.
    5. (Optional) Set Database and Schema to restrict the tables and views exposed.
    6. (Optional) If MFA is enabled on your Snowflake account (via Duo Security), set MFACode to the passcode generated by your Duo authenticator app.

    See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for more information.

    Built-in Connection String Designer

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

    java -jar cdata.jdbc.snowflake.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:snowflake:Authscheme=Password;URL=https://myaccount.snowflakecomputing.com;User=Admin;Password=test123;Server=localhost;Database=Northwind;Warehouse=TestWarehouse;Account=Tester1;MFACode=YourMFACode

Browse Snowflake Tables

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

You can now browse Snowflake tables 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 Snowflake Data Objects

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

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

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

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

    👁 The completed mapping. (Salesforce is shown.)