Use the CData ODBC Driver for HCL Domino in MicroStrategy Web

MicroStrategy is an analytics and mobility platform that enables data-driven innovation. When you pair MicroStrategy with the CData ODBC Driver for HCL Domino, you gain database-like access to live HCL Domino data from MicroStrategy, expanding your reporting and analytics capabilities. In this article, we walk through adding HCL Domino as external data in MicroStrategy Web and creating a simple visualization of HCL Domino data.

The CData ODBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live HCL Domino data in MicroStrategy due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from MicroStrategy to HCL Domino, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to HCL Domino and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. With built-in dynamic metadata querying, you can visualize and analyze HCL Domino data using native MicroStrategy data types.

Connect to HCL Domino as an ODBC Data Source

Information for connecting to HCL Domino follows, along with different instructions for configuring a DSN in Windows and Linux environments (the ODBC Driver for HCL Domino must be installed on the machine hosting the connected MicroStrategy Intelligence Server).

Prerequisites

The connector requires the Proton component to be installed. Normally, Proton is distributed as part of the AppDev pack. See the HCL documentation for instructions on acquiring and installing Proton or the AppDev pack.

Once the Proton service is installed and running, you will also need to create a user account and download its Internet certificate. This certificate can be used to set the connector certificate connection properties.

Authenticating to Domino

• Server: The name or IP address of the server running Domino with the Proton service.
• Port: The port number that the Proton service is listening on.
• Database: The name of the database file, including the .nsf extension.
• SSLClientCertType: This must match the format of the certificate file. Typically this will be either PEMKEY_FILE for .pem certificates or PFXFILE for .pfx certificates.
• SSLClientCert: The path to the certificate file.
• SSLServerCert: This can be set to (*) if you trust the server. This is usually the case, but if you want to perform SSL validation, you may provide a certificate or thumbprint instead. See the documentation for SSLServerCert for details.

Additional Server Configuration

The connector supports querying Domino views if any are defined. Before views can be queried by the connector they must be registered with the design catalog.

Please refer to the Catalog Administration section of the AppDev pack documentation for details on how to do this.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

Windows

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs.

Linux

If you are installing the CData ODBC Driver for HCL Domino in a Linux environment, the driver installation predefines a system DSN. You can modify the DSN by editing the system data sources file (/etc/odbc.ini) and defining the required connection properties.

/etc/odbc.ini

For specific information on using these configuration files, please refer to the help documentation (installed and found online).

Connect to and Visualize HCL Domino Data using MicroStrategy Web

Once you have created a database instance in MicroStrategy Developer and connected it to a project, you can perform a data import of HCL Domino data from MicroStrategy Web. Alternatively, you can create a new data source based on the ODBC Driver.^*

1. Open MicroStrategy Web and select your project.
2. Click Add External Data, select Databases, and choose Select a Table as the Import Option.
3. In the Import from Tables wizard, click to add a new data source.
   • Select DSN Data Sources
   • Set the DSN property to the previously configured DSN (CData Domino Sys)
   • Set the Version property to Generic DBMS
   • Set the User and Password properties (or use filler values)
   • Set the Data Source Name
4. After creating the data source, click to edit the catalog options and set the following queries and click OK.
   • SQL statement to retrieve tables available in the data source

     SELECT
       CatalogName NAME_SPACE,
       TableName TAB_NAME
     FROM
       SYS_TABLES
         

   • SQL statement to retrieve columns for the selected tables

     SELECT DISTINCT 
       CatalogName NAME_SPACE, 
       TableName TAB_NAME, 
       ColumnName COL_NAME, 
       DataTypeName DATA_TYPE, 
       Length DATA_LEN, 
       NumericPrecision DATA_PREC, 
       NumericScale DATA_SCALE 
     FROM 
       SYS_TABLECOLUMNS 
     WHERE 
       TableName IN (#TABLE_LIST#) 
     ORDER BY
       1,2,3
         

5. Drag a table into the pane. Note: Since we create a live connection, we can import whole tables and utilize the filtering and aggregation features native to the MicroStrategy products.
6. Click Finish, choose to the option to connect live, save the query, and choose the option to create a new dossier.
7. Choose a visualization, choose fields to display, and apply any filters to create a new visualization of HCL Domino data. Data types are discovered automatically through dynamic metadata discovery. Where possible, the complex queries generated by the filters and aggregations will be pushed down to HCL Domino, while any unsupported operations (which can include SQL functions and JOIN operations) will be managed client-side by the CData SQL engine embedded in the driver.
8. Once you have finished configuring the dossier, click File -> Save.

Using the CData ODBC Driver for HCL Domino in MicroStrategy Web, you can easily create robust visualizations and reports on HCL Domino data. Read our other articles on connecting to HCL Domino in MicroStrategy and connecting to HCL Domino in MicroStrategy Desktop for more examples.

Note: connecting using a ODBC driver requires a 3- or 4-tier architecture.