Access Zuora Data in Mule Applications Using the CData JDBC Driver

The CData JDBC Driver for Zuora connects Zuora 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 Zuora data.

This article demonstrates how to use the CData JDBC Driver for Zuora inside of a Mule project to create a Web interface for Zuora data. The application created allows you to request Zuora 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.zuora.jar). 👁 Adding the JAR file (Salesforce is shown).
     
   • Set the URL to the connection string for Zuora

     Zuora uses the OAuth standard to authenticate users. See the online Help documentation for a full OAuth authentication guide.

     Configuring Tenant property

     In order to create a valid connection with the provider you need to choose one of the Tenant values (USProduction by default) which matches your account configuration. The following is a list with the available options:

     • USProduction: Requests sent to https://rest.zuora.com.
     • USAPISandbox: Requests sent to https://rest.apisandbox.zuora.com"
     • USPerformanceTest: Requests sent to https://rest.pt1.zuora.com"
     • EUProduction: Requests sent to https://rest.eu.zuora.com"
     • EUSandbox: Requests sent to https://rest.sandbox.eu.zuora.com"

     Selecting a Zuora Service

     Two Zuora services are available: Data Query and AQuA API. By default ZuoraService is set to AQuADataExport.

     DataQuery

     The Data Query feature enables you to export data from your Zuora tenant by performing asynchronous, read-only SQL queries. We recommend to use this service for quick lightweight SQL queries.

     Limitations
     • The maximum number of input records per table after filters have been applied: 1,000,000
     • The maximum number of output records: 100,000
     • The maximum number of simultaneous queries submitted for execution per tenant: 5
     • The maximum number of queued queries submitted for execution after reaching the limitation of simultaneous queries per tenant: 10
     • The maximum processing time for each query in hours: 1
     • The maximum size of memory allocated to each query in GB: 2
     • The maximum number of indices when using Index Join, in other words, the maximum number of records being returned by the left table based on the unique value used in the WHERE clause when using Index Join: 20,000

     AQuADataExport

     AQuA API export is designed to export all the records for all the objects ( tables ). AQuA query jobs have the following limitations:

     Limitations
     • If a query in an AQuA job is executed longer than 8 hours, this job will be killed automatically.
     • The killed AQuA job can be retried three times before returned as failed.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

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

     		java -jar cdata.jdbc.zuora.jar
     		

     Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

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

   SELECT Id, BillingCity FROM Invoices WHERE BillingState = 'CA'

   👁 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 Zuora data, navigate to the address you configured for the HTTP Connector (localhost:8081 by default): http://localhost:8081. The Zuora 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 Zuora 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 Zuora and see the CData difference in your Mule Applications today.