Analyze Live JSON Services in SAS Viya

SAS Viya is an analytics platform that enhances data management, machine learning, and analytics, fostering efficient decision-making and insights. When paired with CData Connect AI, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to JSON services for building predictive models, crafting stunning insights to make data-driven decisions, and more. This article shows how to connect to Connect AI from the SAS Viya cloud platform and integrate live JSON services into your self-service AI and analytics deployments.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL, cloud-to-cloud interface for JSON, allowing you to easily integrate with live JSON services in SAS Viya — without replicating the data. CData Connect AI looks exactly like a SQL Server database to SAS Viya and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to JSON, leveraging server-side processing to return JSON services quickly.

Configure JSON Connectivity for SAS Viya

Connectivity to JSON from SAS Viya is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with JSON services from SAS Viya, we start by creating and configuring a JSON connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "JSON" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to JSON.

   See the Getting Started chapter in the data provider documentation to authenticate to your data source: The data provider models JSON APIs as bidirectional database tables and JSON files as read-only views (local files, files stored on popular cloud services, and FTP servers). The major authentication schemes are supported, including HTTP Basic, Digest, NTLM, OAuth, and FTP. See the Getting Started chapter in the data provider documentation for authentication guides.

   After setting the URI and providing any authentication values, set DataModel to more closely match the data representation to the structure of your data.

   The DataModel property is the controlling property over how your data is represented into tables and toggles the following basic configurations.

   • Document (default): Model a top-level, document view of your JSON data. The data provider returns nested elements as aggregates of data.
   • FlattenedDocuments: Implicitly join nested documents and their parents into a single table.
   • Relational: Return individual, related tables from hierarchical data. The tables contain a primary key and a foreign key that links to the parent document.

   See the Modeling JSON Data chapter for more information on configuring the relational representation. You will also find the sample data used in the following examples. The data includes entries for people, the cars they own, and various maintenance services performed on those cars.

   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add JSON Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to JSON services from SAS Viya.

Connecting to CData Connect AI from SAS Viya

The following steps detail the process of loading data from JSON into SAS Viya using the established connection in CData Connect AI.

1. Download and install the CData Connect AI JDBC driver.
   • Open the Integrations page of CData Connect AI.
   • Search for and select JDBC.
   • Download and run the setup file.
   • When the installation is complete, the JAR file can be found in the installation directory (inside the lib folder).
2. Now, log in to SAS Viya and navigate to the Applications Menu at the top-left corner.
3. Select Develop Code and Flows from the Analytics Life Cycle topic.
4. Navigate to the Explorer tab and click on SAS Server on the left panel.
5. Follow the steps to upload the JAR file of the CData Connect JDBC driver:
   • Right-click on the "Home" directory.
   • Click on Upload files.
   • Place the JAR file in the specified location and note its file path.
6. Once done, navigate to the Libraries tab and click on Create a new library connection (on the top left corner as shown below) for the CData Connect JDBC.
7. Enter the library connection settings:
   • Connection name: enter a name for your connection
   • Library name (libref): enter a reference for your library
   • Library type: choose "SAS/ACCESS to JDBC"
8. Click on the Properties tab and set Library attributes to READONLY.
9. Click the Connection Options tab and enter the following details:
   • Hive JDBC driver's class name: cdata.jdbc.connect.ConnectDriver
   • Java CLASSPATH: enter the file path to the JAR driver file (Refer to Step 5)
10. Click on Test connection. If it succeeds, click on Save and connect.
11. Click on to add a new tab and select SAS program.
12. Fill in the code block below with your setup parameters:
    • Libref: enter the library reference you defined in Step 9.
    • ClassPath: enter the file path to the JAR driver file.
    • Username: enter your CData Connect username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect interface. For example, [email protected].
    • DefaultCatalog: enter the connection configured in CData Connect AI that you want to query.
    • Password: enter the PAT you generated in the "Add a Personal Access Token" section.

    libname [Libref] JDBC   
    classpath=[ClassPath]  
    class="cdata.jdbc.connect.ConnectDriver"     
    URL="jdbc:Connect:AuthScheme=Basic;User=[Username];DefaultCatalog=[DefaultCatalog];DefaultSchema=dbo;Password=[PAT]"; 
     
    proc sql; 
    
    SELECT * FROM [Libref].MyTable; 
    
    quit; 
    

13. Click on Run. You can see the data load from CData Connect AI into SAS Viya.

Live Access to JSON Services from Cloud Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to JSON services from SAS Viya. You can build predictive models, craft insights to make data-driven decisions, and more — all without replicating JSON services.

Try Connect AI and get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.