Extract, Transform, and Load JSON Services in Informatica PowerCenter

Informatica provides a powerful, elegant means of transporting and transforming your data. By utilizing the CData ODBC Driver for JSON, you are gaining access to a driver based on industry-proven standards that integrates seamlessly with Informatica's powerful data transportation and manipulation features. This tutorial shows how to create a simple Workflow in Informatica PowerCenter to extract JSON services and load it into a flat file.

Add JSON as an ODBC Data Source

If you have not already, install the driver on the PowerCenter server and client machines. On both machines, specify the 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.

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.

Create an ETL Workflow in PowerCenter

Follow the steps below to create a workflow in PowerCenter to pull JSON services and push it into a flat file.

Create a Source Using the ODBC Driver

1. In the powrmart.ini file found in %INFA_HOME%\clients\PowerCenterClient\client\bin, add the following line to the ODBCDLL section:

   CData=PMODBC.DLL

2. In PowerCenter Workflow Manager, add a new ODBC relational connection, set the user name and password properties to the user for the machine on which the ODBC Driver is installed, and set the connect string to the System DSN for the driver (CData JSON Sys).
3. In PowerCenter Designer, connect to your repository and open your folder.
4. Select the Source Analyzer, click the sources menu, and select Import from Database...
5. In the drop-down menu for ODBC data source, select the DSN you previously configured (CData JSON Sys).
6. Click connect and select the tables and views to include.
7. Click OK.

Create a Flat File Target Based on the Source

1. Select the Targets Analyzer and drag and drop the previously created source onto the workspace. Using the existing source copies the columns into the target.
2. Right-click the new target, click edit, and change the database type to flat file.

Create a Mapping to Between JSON Services and a Flat File

1. Click on the Mapping Designer.
2. Drag the source and target to the workspace (name the new mapping, if prompted).
3. Right-click on the workspace and select Autolink by Name.
4. Drag the columns from the source qualifier to the target definition.
5. Save the folder (Ctrl + S).

Create Workflow Based on the Mapping

With the source, target, and mapping created and saved, you are now ready to create the workflow.

1. Right-click the mapping and select generate workflow to open the Workflow Generation wizard.
2. Create a workflow with a non-reusable session.
3. Ensure that you have properly configured the connection object (to the relational connection we created earlier) and set the prefixes.
4. Configure the Connection as needed.
5. Review the Workflow and click Finish.

With a workflow created, you can open the PowerCenter Workflow Manager to access and start the workflow, quickly transferring JSON services into a flat file. With the ODBC Driver for JSON, you can configure sources and targets in PowerCenter to integrate JSON services into any of the elegant and powerful features in Informatica PowerCenter.