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IBM Cloud Object Storage Icon IBM Cloud Object Storage Data Cmdlets

An easy-to-use set of PowerShell Cmdlets offering real-time access to IBM Cloud Object Storage. The Cmdlets allow users to easily read, write, update, and delete live data - just like working with SQL server.

PowerShell Scripting to Replicate IBM Cloud Object Storage Data to MySQL



Write a simple PowerShell script to replicate IBM Cloud Object Storage data to a MySQL database.

The CData Cmdlets for IBM Cloud Object Storage offer live access to IBM Cloud Object Storage data from within PowerShell. Using PowerShell scripts, you can easily automate regular tasks like data replication. This article will walk through using the CData Cmdlets for IBM Cloud Object Storage and the CData Cmdlets for MySQL in PowerShell to replicate IBM Cloud Object Storage data to a MySQL database.

After obtaining the needed connection properties, accessing IBM Cloud Object Storage data in PowerShell and preparing for replication consists of four basic steps.

Register a New Instance of Cloud Object Storage

If you do not already have Cloud Object Storage in your IBM Cloud account, follow the procedure below to install an instance of SQL Query in your account:

  1. Log in to your IBM Cloud account.
  2. Navigate to the page, choose a name for your instance and click Create. You will be redirected to the instance of Cloud Object Storage you just created.

Connecting using OAuth Authentication

There are certain connection properties you need to set before you can connect. You can obtain these as follows:

API Key

To connect with IBM Cloud Object Storage, you need an API Key. You can obtain this as follows:

  1. Log in to your IBM Cloud account.
  2. Navigate to the Platform API Keys page.
  3. On the middle-right corner click "Create an IBM Cloud API Key" to create a new API Key.
  4. In the pop-up window, specify the API Key name and click "Create". Note the API Key as you can never access it again from the dashboard.

Cloud Object Storage CRN

If you have multiple accounts, you will need to specify the CloudObjectStorageCRN explicitly. To find the appropriate value, you can:

  • Query the Services view. This will list your IBM Cloud Object Storage instances along with the CRN for each.
  • Locate the CRN directly in IBM Cloud. To do so, navigate to your IBM Cloud Dashboard. In the Resource List, Under Storage, select your Cloud Object Storage resource to get its CRN.

Connecting to Data

You can now set the following to connect to data:

  • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
  • ApiKey: Set this to your API key which was noted during setup.
  • CloudObjectStorageCRN (Optional): Set this to the cloud object storage CRN you want to work with. While the connector attempts to retrieve this automatically, specifying this explicitly is recommended if you have more than Cloud Object Storage account.

When you connect, the connector completes the OAuth process.

  1. Extracts the access token and authenticates requests.
  2. Saves OAuth values in OAuthSettingsLocation to be persisted across connections.

Collecting IBM Cloud Object Storage Data

  1. Install the module:

    Install-Module IBMCloudObjectStorageCmdlets
  2. Connect to IBM Cloud Object Storage:

    $ibmcloudobjectstorage = Connect-IBMCloudObjectStorage -ApiKey $ApiKey -CloudObjectStorageCRN $CloudObjectStorageCRN -Region $Region -OAuthClientId $OAuthClientId -OAuthClientSecret $OAuthClientSecret
  3. Retrieve the data from a specific resource:

    $data = Select-IBMCloudObjectStorage -Connection $ibmcloudobjectstorage -Table "Objects"

    You can also use the Invoke-IBMCloudObjectStorage cmdlet to execute pure SQL-92 statements:

    $data = Invoke-IBMCloudObjectStorage -Connection $ibmcloudobjectstorage -Query 'SELECT * FROM Objects WHERE Bucket = @Bucket' -Params @{'@Bucket'='someBucket'}
  4. Save a list of the column names from the returned data.

    $columns = ($data | Get-Member -MemberType NoteProperty | Select-Object -Property Name).Name

Inserting IBM Cloud Object Storage Data into the MySQL Database

With the data and column names collected, you are ready to replicate the data into a MySQL database.

  1. Install the module:

    Install-Module MySQLCmdlets
  2. Connect to MySQL, using the server address and port of the MySQL server, valid user credentials, and a specific database with the table in which the data will be replicated:

    $mysql = Connect-MySQL -User $User -Password $Password -Database $Database -Server $Server -Port $Port
  3. Loop through the IBM Cloud Object Storage data, store the values, and use the Add-MySQL cmdlet to insert the data into the MySQL database, one row at a time. In this example, the table will need to have the same name as the IBM Cloud Object Storage resource (Objects) and to exist in the database.

    $data | % { $row = $_ $values = @() $columns | % { $col = $_ $values += $row.$($col) } Add-MySQL -Connection $mysql -Table "Objects" -Columns $columns -Values $values }

You have now replicated your IBM Cloud Object Storage data to a MySQL database. This gives you freedom to work with IBM Cloud Object Storage data in the same way that you work with other MySQL tables, whether that is performing analytics, building reports, or other business functions.

Notes

  • Once you have connected to IBM Cloud Object Storage and MySQL in PowerShell, you can pipe command results to perform the replication in a single line:

    Select-IBMCloudObjectStorage -Connection $ibmcloudobjectstorage -Table "Objects" | % { $row = $_ $values = @() $columns | % { $col = $_ $values += $row.$($col) } Add-MySQL -Connection $mysql -Table "Objects" -Columns $columns -Values $values }
  • If you wish to replicate the IBM Cloud Object Storage data to another database using another PowerShell module, you will want to exclude the Columns, Connection, and Table columns from the data returned by the Select-IBMCloudObjectStorage cmdlet since those columns are used to help pipe data from one CData cmdlet to another:

    $columns = ($data | Get-Member -MemberType NoteProperty | Select-Object -Property Name).Name | ? {$_ -NotIn @('Columns','Connection','Table')}