Create Informatica Mappings From/To a JDBC Data Source for SQL Analysis Services

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

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 SQL Analysis Services 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.ssas.SSASDriver

4. In the Connection String property, enter the JDBC URL, using the connection properties for SQL Analysis Services.

   To connect, provide authentication and set the Url property to a valid SQL Server Analysis Services endpoint. You can connect to SQL Server Analysis Services instances hosted over HTTP with XMLA access. See the Microsoft documentation to configure HTTP access to SQL Server Analysis Services.

   To secure connections and authenticate, set the corresponding connection properties, below. The data provider supports the major authentication schemes, including HTTP and Windows, as well as SSL/TLS.

   • HTTP Authentication

     Set AuthScheme to "Basic" or "Digest" and set User and Password. Specify other authentication values in CustomHeaders.

   • Windows (NTLM)

     Set the Windows User and Password and set AuthScheme to "NTLM".

   • Kerberos and Kerberos Delegation

     To authenticate with Kerberos, set AuthScheme to NEGOTIATE. To use Kerberos delegation, set AuthScheme to KERBEROSDELEGATION. If needed, provide the User, Password, and KerberosSPN. By default, the data provider attempts to communicate with the SPN at the specified Url.

   • SSL/TLS:

     By default, the data provider attempts to negotiate SSL/TLS by checking the server's certificate against the system's trusted certificate store. To specify another certificate, see the SSLServerCert property for the available formats.

   You can then access any cube as a relational table: When you connect the data provider retrieves SSAS metadata and dynamically updates the table schemas. Instead of retrieving metadata every connection, you can set the CacheLocation property to automatically cache to a simple file-based store.

   See the Getting Started section of the CData documentation, under Retrieving Analysis Services Data, to execute SQL-92 queries to the cubes.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

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

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.ssas.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:ssas:User=myuseraccount;Password=mypassword;URL=http://localhost/OLAP/msmdpump.dll;

Browse SQL Analysis Services Tables

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

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

Create SQL Analysis Services Data Objects

Follow the steps below to add SQL Analysis Services tables to your project:

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

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

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

   👁 The completed mapping. (Salesforce is shown.)