Access Zuora Data as a Remote Oracle Database

The Oracle Database Gateway for ODBC and Heterogeneous Services technology enable you to connect to ODBC data sources as remote Oracle databases. This article shows how to use the CData ODBC Driver for Zuora to create a database link from Zuora to Oracle and to query Zuora data through the SQL*Plus tool. You can also create the database link and execute queries from SQL Developer.

Connect to Zuora as an ODBC Data Source

Information for connecting to Zuora follows, along with different instructions for configuring a DSN in Windows and Linux environments.

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.

Windows

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

Note: If you need to modify the DSN or create other Zuora DSNs, you must use a system DSN and the bitness of the DSN must match your Oracle system. You can access and create 32-bit DSNs on a 64-bit system by opening the 32-bit ODBC Data Source Administrator from C:\Windows\SysWOW64\odbcad32.exe.

Linux

If you are installing the CData ODBC Driver for Zuora in a Linux environment, the driver installation predefines a system DSN. You can modify the DSN by editing the system data sources file (/etc/odbc.ini) and defining the required connection properties.

/etc/odbc.ini

[CData Zuora Source]
Driver = CData ODBC Driver for Zuora
Description = My Description
OAuthClientID = MyOAuthClientId
OAuthClientSecret = MyOAuthClientSecret
Tenant = USProduction
ZuoraService = DataQuery
InitiateOAuth = GETANDREFRESH

For specific information on using these configuration files, please refer to the help documentation (installed and found online).

Set Connection Properties for Compatibility with Oracle

The driver provides several connection properties that streamline accessing Zuora data just as you would an Oracle database. Set the following properties when working with Zuora data in SQL*Plus and SQL Developer. For compatibility with Oracle, you will need to set the following connection properties, in addition to authentication and other required connection properties.

• MapToWVarchar=False

  Set this property to map string data types to SQL_VARCHAR instead of SQL_WVARCHAR. By default, the driver uses SQL_WVARCHAR to accommodate various international character sets. You can use this property to avoid the ORA-28528 Heterogeneous Services data type conversion error when the Unicode type is returned.

• MaximumColumnSize=4000

  Set this property to restrict the maximum column size to 4000 characters.

• IncludeDualTable=True

  Set this property to mock the Oracle DUAL table. SQL Developer uses this table to test the connection.

Linux Configuration

In Linux environments, Oracle uses UTF-8 to communicate with the unixODBC Driver manager, whereas the default driver encoding is UTF-16. To resolve this, open the file /opt/cdata/cdata-driver-for-zuora/lib/cdata.odbc.zuora.ini in a text editor and set the encoding.

cdata.odbc.zuora.ini

[Driver]
DriverManagerEncoding = UTF-8

Configure the ODBC Gateway, Oracle Net, and Oracle Database

Follow the procedure below to set up an ODBC gateway to Zuora data that enables you to query live Zuora data as an Oracle database.

1. Create the file initmyzuoradb.ora in the folder oracle-home-directory/hs/admin and add the following setting:

   initmyzuoradb.ora

   HS_FDS_CONNECT_INFO = "CData Zuora Sys"

2. Add an entry to the listener.ora file. This file is located in oracle-home-directory/NETWORK/admin.

   If you are using the Database Gateway for ODBC, your listener.ora needs to have a SID_LIST_LISTENER entry that resembles the following:

   listener.ora

   SID_LIST_LISTENER =
    (SID_LIST =
    (SID_DESC =
    (SID_NAME = myzuoradb)
    (ORACLE_HOME = your-oracle-home)
    (PROGRAM = dg4odbc)
    )
    )
   

   If you are using Heterogeneous Services, your listener.ora needs to have a SID_LIST_LISTENER entry that resembles the following:

   listener.ora

   SID_LIST_LISTENER =
    (SID_LIST =
    (SID_DESC =
    (SID_NAME = myzuoradb)
    (ORACLE_HOME = your-oracle-home)
    (PROGRAM = hsodbc)
    )
    )
   

3. Add the connect descriptor below in tnsnames.ora, located in oracle-home-directory/NETWORK/admin:

   tnsnames.ora

   myzuoradb =
    (DESCRIPTION=
    (ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=tcp)(HOST=localhost)(PORT=1521))
    (CONNECT_DATA=(SID=myzuoradb))
    (HS=OK)
    ) 
   

4. Restart the listener.

5. Test the configuration with the following command:

   tnsping myzuoradb

6. Open SQL*Plus and create the database link with the command below:

   CREATE DATABASE LINK myzuoradb CONNECT TO "user" IDENTIFIED BY "password" USING 'myzuoradb';

You can now execute queries in SQL*Plus like the one below (note the double quotation marks around the table name):

SELECT * from "Invoices"@myzuoradb WHERE BillingState = 'CA';