Query Adobe Experience Manager Data through ODBC in Node.js

Node.js is a JavaScript runtime environment that allows you to run JavaScript code outside of a browser. With the CData ODBC Driver for Adobe Experience Manager, you can access live Adobe Experience Manager data from Node.js apps and scripts. In this article, we walk through installing node-odbc and the required tools to create a simple Node.js app with access to live Adobe Experience Manager data.

With built-in optimized data processing, the CData ODBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Adobe Experience Manager data in Node.js. When you issue complex SQL queries from Node.js to Adobe Experience Manager, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Adobe Experience Manager and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations).

Connecting to Adobe Experience Manager Data

If you have not already done so, provide values for the required connection properties in the data source name (DSN). You can use the built-in Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to configure the DSN. This is also the last step of the driver installation. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the help documentation for a guide to using the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure a DSN.

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.

Building node-odbc

In order to connect to Adobe Experience Manager through the CData ODBC Driver, you need to build node-odbc manually (after installing the required tools).

Installing the Required Tools

The following commands install the tools required to build node-odbc (note the -g parameter, which installs the tools globally).

npm i -g windows-build-tools
npm i -g node-gyp

Building node-odbc

After installing the required tools, create a directory for the Node.js app and install odbc (which builds the binary for us to use in our Node.js script).

mkdir nodeodbc
cd nodeodbc
npm i -g node

Querying Adobe Experience Manager from Node.js

With the ODBC Driver installed, a DSN Configured, and node-odbc built, we are ready to query live Adobe Experience Manager data from a Node.js app. The sample code below connects to a specific DSN and queries the Content table.

myscript.js

const odbc = require('odbc');

async function queryAdobeExperienceManager() {
    const connection = await odbc.connect(`DSN=CData AdobeExperienceManager Source`);
    const data = await connection.query('SELECT Id, Name FROM Content');
    console.log(data);
}

queryAdobeExperienceManager();

Once you write the app, use node to execute the script:

node myscript.js

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData ODBC Driver for Adobe Experience Manager and start working with your live Adobe Experience Manager data in Node.js. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.