Connect to Adobe Experience Manager Data as an External Data Source using PolyBase

PolyBase for SQL Server allows you to query external data by using the same Transact-SQL syntax used to query a database table. When paired with the CData ODBC Driver for Adobe Experience Manager, you get access to your Adobe Experience Manager data directly alongside your SQL Server data. This article describes creating an external data source and external tables to grant access to live Adobe Experience Manager data using T-SQL queries.

NOTE: PolyBase is only available on SQL Server 19 and above.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for Adobe Experience Manager, allowing you to query data from Adobe Experience Manager without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Adobe Experience Manager, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Adobe Experience Manager data quickly.

Configure Adobe Experience Manager Connectivity for PolyBase

Connectivity to Adobe Experience Manager from PolyBase is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Adobe Experience Manager data from PolyBase, we start by creating and configuring a Adobe Experience Manager connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "Adobe Experience Manager" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Adobe Experience Manager.

   The driver connects to Adobe Experience Manager (AEM) instances that expose the JCR repository over WebDAV. It supports both on-premises AEM and AEM as a Cloud Service deployments.

   To establish a connection, set the following properties:

   • URL: The WebDAV-enabled JCR server URL.
     • AEM as a Cloud Service: https://author-pXXXXX-eXXXXX.adobeaemcloud.com/crx/server
     • Local development: http://localhost:4502/crx/server
   • User: Your AEM username.
   • Password: Your AEM password.

   Note: Tables are dynamically generated based on the JCR repository structure. Ensure that the configured user has sufficient permissions to access the required content paths in the AEM repository.

   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Adobe Experience Manager Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to Adobe Experience Manager data from Polybase.

Create an External Data Source for Adobe Experience Manager Data

After configuring the connection, you need to create a credential database for the external data source.

Creating a Credential Database

Execute the following SQL command to create credentials for the external data source connected to Adobe Experience Manager data.

NOTE: Set IDENTITY to your Connect AI username and set SECRET to your Personal Access Token.

CREATE DATABASE SCOPED CREDENTIAL ConnectCloudCredentials
WITH IDENTITY = 'yourusername', SECRET = 'yourPAT';

Create an External Data Source for Adobe Experience Manager

Execute a CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE SQL command to create an external data source for Adobe Experience Manager with PolyBase:

CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE ConnectCloudInstance
WITH ( 
  LOCATION = 'sqlserver://tds.cdata.com:14333',
  PUSHDOWN = ON,
  CREDENTIAL = ConnectCloudCredentials
);

Create External Tables for Adobe Experience Manager

After creating the external data source, use CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE statements to link to Adobe Experience Manager data from your SQL Server instance. The table column definitions must match those exposed by CData Connect AI. You can use the Data Explorer in Connect AI to see the table definition.

Sample CREATE TABLE Statement

Execute a CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE SQL command to create the external table(s), using the collation and setting the LOCATION to three-part notation for the connection, catalog, and table. The statement to create an external table based on a Adobe Experience Manager Content would look similar to the following.

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE Content(
  Id COLLATE [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  Name COLLATE [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  ...
) WITH ( 
  LOCATION='AdobeExperienceManager1.AdobeExperienceManager.Content',
  DATA_SOURCE=ConnectCloudInstance
);

Having created external tables for Adobe Experience Manager in your SQL Server instance, you are now able to query local and remote data simultaneously. To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your SQL Server database, try CData Connect AI today!