Connect to IBM Cloud Object Storage Data in DBeaver

The CData JDBC Driver for IBM Cloud Object Storage implements JDBC standards that enable third-party tools to interoperate, from wizards in IDEs to business intelligence tools. This article shows how to connect to IBM Cloud Object Storage data with wizards in DBeaver and browse data in the DBeaver GUI.

Create a JDBC Data Source for IBM Cloud Object Storage Data

Follow the steps below to load the driver JAR in DBeaver.

1. Open the DBeaver application and, in the Databases menu, select the Driver Manager option. Click New to open the Create New Driver form.
2. In the Driver Name box, enter a user-friendly name for the driver.
3. To add the .jar, click Add File.
4. In the create new driver dialog that appears, select the cdata.jdbc.ibmcloudobjectstorage.jar file, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
5. Click the Find Class button and select the IBMCloudObjectStorageDriver class from the results. This will automatically fill the Class Name field at the top of the form. The class name for the driver is cdata.jdbc.ibmcloudobjectstorage.IBMCloudObjectStorageDriver.
6. Add jdbc:ibmcloudobjectstorage: in the URL Template field.

Create a Connection to IBM Cloud Object Storage Data

Follow the steps below to add credentials and other required connection properties.

1. In the Databases menu, click New Connection.
2. In the Create new connection wizard that results, select the driver.
3. On the next page of the wizard, click the driver properties tab.

4. Enter values for authentication credentials and other properties required to connect to IBM Cloud Object Storage.

   Register a New Instance of Cloud Object Storage

   If you do not already have Cloud Object Storage in your IBM Cloud account, follow the procedure below to install an instance of SQL Query in your account:

   1. Log in to your IBM Cloud account.
   2. Navigate to the page, choose a name for your instance and click Create. You will be redirected to the instance of Cloud Object Storage you just created.

   Connecting using OAuth Authentication

   There are certain connection properties you need to set before you can connect. You can obtain these as follows:

   API Key

   To connect with IBM Cloud Object Storage, you need an API Key. You can obtain this as follows:

   1. Log in to your IBM Cloud account.
   2. Navigate to the Platform API Keys page.
   3. On the middle-right corner click "Create an IBM Cloud API Key" to create a new API Key.
   4. In the pop-up window, specify the API Key name and click "Create". Note the API Key as you can never access it again from the dashboard.

   Cloud Object Storage CRN

   If you have multiple accounts, you will need to specify the CloudObjectStorageCRN explicitly. To find the appropriate value, you can:

   • Query the Services view. This will list your IBM Cloud Object Storage instances along with the CRN for each.
   • Locate the CRN directly in IBM Cloud. To do so, navigate to your IBM Cloud Dashboard. In the Resource List, Under Storage, select your Cloud Object Storage resource to get its CRN.

   Connecting to Data

   You can now set the following to connect to data:

   • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
   • ApiKey: Set this to your API key which was noted during setup.
   • CloudObjectStorageCRN (Optional): Set this to the cloud object storage CRN you want to work with. While the connector attempts to retrieve this automatically, specifying this explicitly is recommended if you have more than Cloud Object Storage account.

   When you connect, the connector completes the OAuth process.

   1. Extracts the access token and authenticates requests.
   2. Saves OAuth values in OAuthSettingsLocation to be persisted across connections.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

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

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.ibmcloudobjectstorage.jar

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

   Below is a typical connection string:

   jdbc:ibmcloudobjectstorage:ApiKey=myApiKey;CloudObjectStorageCRN=MyInstanceCRN;Region=myRegion;OAuthClientId=MyOAuthClientId;OAuthClientSecret=myOAuthClientSecret;

Query IBM Cloud Object Storage Data

You can now query information from the tables exposed by the connection: Right-click a Table and then click Edit Table. The data is available on the Data tab.