Integrate REST Data in Your Informatica Cloud Instance

Informatica Cloud allows you to perform extract, transform, and load (ETL) tasks in the cloud. With the Cloud Secure Agent and the CData JDBC Driver for REST, you get live access to REST data, directly within Informatica Cloud. In this article, we will walk through downloading and registering the Cloud Secure Agent, connecting to REST through the JDBC Driver and generating a mapping that can be used in any Informatica Cloud process.

Informatica Cloud Secure Agent

To work with the REST data through the JDBC Driver, install the Cloud Secure Agent.

1. Navigate to the Administrator page in Informatica Cloud
2. Select the Runtime Environments tab
3. Click "Download Secure Agent"
4. Make note of the Install Token
5. Run the installer on the client machine and register the Cloud Secure Agent with your username and install token

NOTE: It may take some time for all of the Cloud Secure Agent services to get up and running.

Connecting to the REST JDBC Driver

With the Cloud Secure Agent installed and running, you are ready to connect to REST through the JDBC Driver. Start by clicking the Connections tab and clicking New Connection. Fill in the following properties for the connection:

• Connection Name: Name your connection (i.e.: CData REST Connection)
• Type: Select "JDBC_IC (Informatica Cloud)"
• Runtime Environment: Select the runtime environment where you installed the Cloud Secure Agent
• JDBC Connection URL: Set this to the JDBC URL for REST. Your URL will look similar to the following:
  
  jdbc:rest:DataModel=Relational;URI=C:/people.xml;Format=XML;

  See the Getting Started chapter in the data provider documentation to authenticate to your data source: The data provider models REST APIs as bidirectional database tables and XML/JSON files as read-only views (local files, files stored on popular cloud services, and FTP servers). The major authentication schemes are supported, including HTTP Basic, Digest, NTLM, OAuth, and FTP. See the Getting Started chapter in the data provider documentation for authentication guides.

  After setting the URI and providing any authentication values, set Format to "XML" or "JSON" and set DataModel to more closely match the data representation to the structure of your data.

  The DataModel property is the controlling property over how your data is represented into tables and toggles the following basic configurations.

  • Document (default): Model a top-level, document view of your REST data. The data provider returns nested elements as aggregates of data.
  • FlattenedDocuments: Implicitly join nested documents and their parents into a single table.
  • Relational: Return individual, related tables from hierarchical data. The tables contain a primary key and a foreign key that links to the parent document.

  See the Modeling REST Data chapter for more information on configuring the relational representation. You will also find the sample data used in the following examples. The data includes entries for people, the cars they own, and various maintenance services performed on those cars.

  Built-In Connection String Designer

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

  java -jar cdata.jdbc.rest.jar

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

• JDBC Jar Directory: Set this to the lib folder in the installation location for the JDBC Driver (on Windows, typically C:\Program Files\CData[product_name]\)
• Driver Class: Set this to cdata.jdbc.rest.RESTDriver
• Username: Set this to a placeholder value (since REST does not require a username)
• Password: Set this to a placeholder value (since REST does not require a password)

Create a Mapping for REST Data

With the connection to REST configured, we can now access REST data in any Informatica process. The steps below walk through creating a mapping for REST to another data target.

1. Navigate to the Data Integration page
2. Click New.. and select Mapping from the Mappings tab
3. Click the Source Object and in the Source tab, select the Connection and set the Source Type
4. Click "Select" to choose the table to map
5. In the Fields tab, select the fields from the REST table to map
6. Click the Target object and configure the Target source, table and fields. In the Field Mapping tab, map the source fields to the target fields.

With the mapping configured, you are ready to start integrating live REST data with any of the supported connections in Informatica Cloud. Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData JDBC Driver for REST and start working with your live REST data in Informatica Cloud today.