ETL Certinia in Oracle Data Integrator



This article shows how to transfer Certinia data into a data warehouse using Oracle Data Integrator.

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

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

This article walks through a JDBC-based ETL -- Certinia to Oracle. After reverse engineering a data model of Certinia 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.certinia.jar) and .lic file (cdata.jdbc.certinia.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 Certinia data. After reverse engineering, you can query real-time Certinia data and create mappings based on Certinia 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 Certinia.
    • Technology: Select Generic SQL (for ODI Version 12.2+, select Microsoft SQL Server).
    • Logical Schema: Enter Certinia.
    • Context: Select Global.
  3. On the Data Server screen of the resulting dialog, enter the following information:
    • Name: Enter Certinia.
    • Driver List: Select Oracle JDBC Driver.
    • Driver: Enter cdata.jdbc.certinia.CertiniaDriver
    • URL: Enter the JDBC URL containing the connection string.

      There are several authentication methods available for connecting to Certinia: login credentials, SSO, and OAuth.

      Authenticating with a Login and Token

      Set the User and Password to your login credentials. Additionally, set the SecurityToken. By default, the SecurityToken is required, but you can make it optional by allowing a range of trusted IP addresses.

      To disable the security token:

      1. Log in to Certinia and enter "Network Access" in the Quick Find box in the setup section.
      2. Add your IP address to the list of trusted IP addresses.

      To obtain the security token:

      1. Open the personal information page on certinia.com.
      2. Click the link to reset your security token. The token will be emailed to you.
      3. Specify the security token in the SecurityToken connection property or append it to the Password.

      Authenticating with OAuth

      If you do not have access to the user name and password or do not want to require them, use the OAuth user consent flow. See the OAuth section in the Help for an authentication guide.

      Connecting to Certinia Sandbox Accounts

      Set UseSandbox to true (false by default) to use a Certinia sandbox account. Ensure that you specify a sandbox user name in User.

      Built-in Connection String Designer

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

      java -jar cdata.jdbc.certinia.jar

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

      Below is a typical connection string:

      jdbc:certinia:User=myUser;Password=myPassword;Security Token=myToken;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH
  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 Certinia, enter the Schema selected, otherwise enter Certinia.
    • Database (Work Catalog): Enter CData.
    • Owner (Work Schema): If you select a Schema for Certinia, enter the Schema selected, otherwise enter Certinia.
  5. In the opened model click Reverse Engineer to retrieve the metadata for Certinia tables.

Edit and Save Certinia Data

After reverse engineering you can now work with Certinia data in ODI. To edit and save Certinia data, expand the Models accordion in the Designer navigator, right-click a table, and click Data. Click Refresh to pick up any changes to the data. Click Save Changes when you are finished making changes.

Create an ETL Project

Follow the steps below to create an ETL from Certinia. You will load Account 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 Account table in Certinia: CREATE TABLE ODI_DEMO.TRG_ACCOUNT (NAME NUMBER(20,0),BillingState 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_ACCOUNT 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_ACCOUNT table from the Sales Administration model onto the mapping.
  7. Drag the Account table from the Certinia 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 ACCOUNT_AP in TARGET_GROUP.
  10. In the ACCOUNT_AP properties, select LKM SQL to SQL (Built-In) on the Loading Knowledge Module tab.

You can then run the mapping to load Certinia data into Oracle.

Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the Certinia Driver to get started:

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