ETL Adobe Experience Manager in Oracle Data Integrator

Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
This article shows how to transfer Adobe Experience Manager data into a data warehouse using Oracle Data Integrator.

Leverage existing skills by using the JDBC standard to connect to Adobe Experience Manager: Through drop-in integration into ETL tools like Oracle Data Integrator (ODI), the CData JDBC Driver for Adobe Experience Manager connects real-time Adobe Experience Manager data to your data warehouse, business intelligence, and Big Data technologies.

JDBC connectivity enables you to work with Adobe Experience Manager just as you would any other database in ODI. As with an RDBMS, you can use the driver to connect directly to the Adobe Experience Manager APIs in real time instead of working with flat files.

This article walks through a JDBC-based ETL -- Adobe Experience Manager to Oracle. After reverse engineering a data model of Adobe Experience Manager entities, you will create a mapping and select a data loading strategy -- since the driver supports SQL-92, this last step can easily be accomplished by selecting the built-in SQL to SQL Loading Knowledge Module.

Install the Driver

To install the driver, copy the driver JAR (cdata.jdbc.adobeexperiencemanager.jar) and .lic file (cdata.jdbc.adobeexperiencemanager.lic), located in the installation folder, into the ODI appropriate directory:

  • UNIX/Linux without Agent: ~/.odi/oracledi/userlib
  • UNIX/Linux with Agent: ~/.odi/oracledi/userlib and $ODI_HOME/odi/agent/lib
  • Windows without Agent: %APPDATA%\Roaming\odi\oracledi\userlib
  • Windows with Agent: %APPDATA%\odi\oracledi\userlib and %APPDATA%\odi\agent\lib

Restart ODI to complete the installation.

Reverse Engineer a Model

Reverse engineering the model retrieves metadata about the driver's relational view of Adobe Experience Manager data. After reverse engineering, you can query real-time Adobe Experience Manager data and create mappings based on Adobe Experience Manager tables.

  1. In ODI, connect to your repository and click New -> Model and Topology Objects.
  2. On the Model screen of the resulting dialog, enter the following information:
    • Name: Enter AdobeExperienceManager.
    • Technology: Select Generic SQL (for ODI Version 12.2+, select Microsoft SQL Server).
    • Logical Schema: Enter AdobeExperienceManager.
    • Context: Select Global.
  3. On the Data Server screen of the resulting dialog, enter the following information:
    • Name: Enter AdobeExperienceManager.
    • Driver List: Select Oracle JDBC Driver.
    • Driver: Enter cdata.jdbc.adobeexperiencemanager.AdobeExperienceManagerDriver
    • URL: Enter the JDBC URL containing the connection string.

      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.

      Built-in Connection String Designer

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

      java -jar cdata.jdbc.adobeexperiencemanager.jar
      

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

      Below is a typical connection string:

      jdbc:adobeexperiencemanager:URL=https://author-p12345-e67890.adobeaemcloud.com/crx/server;User=admin;Password=admin;
      
  4. On the Physical Schema screen, enter the following information:
    • Name: Select from the Drop Down menu.
    • Database (Catalog): Enter CData.
    • Owner (Schema): If you select a Schema for Adobe Experience Manager, enter the Schema selected, otherwise enter AdobeExperienceManager.
    • Database (Work Catalog): Enter CData.
    • Owner (Work Schema): If you select a Schema for Adobe Experience Manager, enter the Schema selected, otherwise enter AdobeExperienceManager.
  5. In the opened model click Reverse Engineer to retrieve the metadata for Adobe Experience Manager tables.

Edit and Save Adobe Experience Manager Data

After reverse engineering you can now work with Adobe Experience Manager data in ODI. To view Adobe Experience Manager data, expand the Models accordion in the Designer navigator, right-click a table, and click View data.

Create an ETL Project

Follow the steps below to create an ETL from Adobe Experience Manager. You will load Content entities into the sample data warehouse included in the ODI Getting Started VM.

  1. Open SQL Developer and connect to your Oracle database. Right-click the node for your database in the Connections pane and click new SQL Worksheet.

    Alternatively you can use SQLPlus. From a command prompt enter the following:

    sqlplus / as sysdba
    
  2. Enter the following query to create a new target table in the sample data warehouse, which is in the ODI_DEMO schema. The following query defines a few columns that match the Content table in Adobe Experience Manager:
    CREATE TABLE ODI_DEMO.TRG_CONTENT (NAME NUMBER(20,0),Id VARCHAR2(255));
    
  3. In ODI expand the Models accordion in the Designer navigator and double-click the Sales Administration node in the ODI_DEMO folder. The model is opened in the Model Editor.
  4. Click Reverse Engineer. The TRG_CONTENT table is added to the model.
  5. Right-click the Mappings node in your project and click New Mapping. Enter a name for the mapping and clear the Create Empty Dataset option. The Mapping Editor is displayed.
  6. Drag the TRG_CONTENT table from the Sales Administration model onto the mapping.
  7. Drag the Content table from the Adobe Experience Manager model onto the mapping.
  8. Click the source connector point and drag to the target connector point. The Attribute Matching dialog is displayed. For this example, use the default options. The target expressions are then displayed in the properties for the target columns.
  9. Open the Physical tab of the Mapping Editor and click CONTENT_AP in TARGET_GROUP.
  10. In the CONTENT_AP properties, select LKM SQL to SQL (Built-In) on the Loading Knowledge Module tab.

You can then run the mapping to load Adobe Experience Manager data into Oracle.

Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the Adobe Experience Manager Driver to get started:

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