Access Live BigCommerce Data in TIBCO Data Virtualization

TIBCO Data Virtualization (TDV) is an enterprise data virtualization solution that orchestrates access to multiple and varied data sources. When paired with the CData TIBCO DV Adapter for BigCommerce, you get federated access to live BigCommerce data directly within TIBCO Data Virtualization. This article walks through deploying an adapter and creating a new data source based on BigCommerce.

With built-in optimized data processing, the CData TIBCO DV Adapter offers unmatched performance for interacting with live BigCommerce data. When you issue complex SQL queries to BigCommerce, the adapter pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to BigCommerce. Its built-in dynamic metadata querying allows you to work with and analyze BigCommerce data using native data types.

Deploy the BigCommerce TIBCO DV Adapter

1. In a console, navigate to the bin folder in the TDV Server installation directory. If there is a current version of the adapter installed, you will need to undeploy it.

   .\server_util.bat -server localhost -user admin -password ******** -undeploy -version 1 -name BigCommerce
   

2. Extract the CData TIBCO DV Adapter to a local folder and deploy the JAR file (tdv.bigcommerce.jar) to the server from the extract location.

   .\server_util.bat -server localhost -user admin -password ******** -deploy -package /PATH/TO/tdv.bigcommerce.jar
   

You may need to restart the server to ensure the new JAR file is loaded properly, which can be accomplished by running the composite.bat script located at: C:\Program Files\TIBCO\TDV Server <version>\bin. Note that reauthenticating to the TDV Studio is required after restarting the server.

Sample Restart Call

.\composite.bat monitor restart

Authenticate with BigCommerce Using OAuth

Since BigCommerce authenticates using the OAuth protocol and TDV Studio does not support browser-based authentication internally, you will need to create and run a simple Java application to retrieve the OAuth tokens. Once retrieved, the tokens are used to connect to BigCommerce directly from the adapter.

The following code sample shows how to authenticate with BigCommerce. You will simply need to execute the Java application with the tdv.bigcommerce.jar file in the class path.

BigCommerceOAuth oauth = new BigCommerceOAuth();  
oauth.generateOAuthSettingsFile("InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;" + 
                                  "OAuthClientId=YourClientId; OAuthClientSecret=YourClientSecret; StoreId='YourStoreID'; CallbackURL='http://localhost:33333'" + 
                                  "OAuthSettingsLocation=C:\bigcommerce\OAuthSettings.txt;");

Once you deploy the adapter and authenticate, you can create a new data source for BigCommerce in TDV Studio.

Create a BigCommerce Data Source in TDV Studio

With the CData TIBCO DV Adapter for BigCommerce, you can easily create a data source for BigCommerce and introspect the data source to add resources to TDV.

Create the Data Source

1. Right-click on the folder you wish to add the data source to and select New -> New Data Source.
2. Scroll until you find the adapter (e.g. BigCommerce) and click Next.
3. Name the data source (e.g. CData BigCommerce Source).

4. Fill in the required connection properties.

   BigCommerce authentication is based on the standard OAuth flow. To authenticate, you must initially create an app via the Big Commerce developer platform where you can obtain an OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL. These three parameters will be set as connection properties to your driver.

   Additionally, in order to connect to your BigCommerce Store, you will need your StoreId. To find your Store Id please follow these steps:

   1. Log in to your BigCommerce account.
   2. From the Home Page, select Advanced Settings > API Accounts.
   3. Click Create API Account.
   4. A text box named API Path will appear on your screen.
   5. Inside you can see a URL of the following structure: https://api.bigcommerce.com/stores/{Store Id}/v3.
   6. As demonstrated above, your Store Id will be between the 'stores/' and '/v3' path paramters.
   7. Once you have retrieved your Store Id you can either click Cancel or proceed in creating an API Account in case you do not have one already.

   NOTE: Set the OAuthSettingsLocation property in the DV Adapter to the same value you used when performing the OAuth authentication (see above).

5. Click Create & Close.

Introspect the Data Source

Once the data source is created, you can introspect the data source by right-clicking and selecting Open. In the dashboard, click Add/Remove Resources and select the Tables, Views, and Stored Procedures to include as part of the data source. Click Next and Finish to add the selected BigCommerce tables, views, and stored procedures as resources.

After creating and introspecting the data source, you are ready to work with BigCommerce data in TIBCO Data Virtualization just like you would any other relational data source. You can create views, query using SQL, publish the data source, and more.