Configure the CData JDBC Driver for OpenWeatherMap in a Connection Pool in Tomcat

The CData JDBC Drivers support standard JDBC interfaces to integrate with Web applications running on the JVM. This article details how to connect to OpenWeatherMap data from a connection pool in Tomcat.

Connect to OpenWeatherMap Data through a Connection Pool in Tomcat

1. Copy the CData JAR and CData .lic file to $CATALINA_HOME/lib. The CData JAR is located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
2. Add a definition of the resource to the context. Specify the JDBC URL here.

   Using API Key Authentication

   To obtain an API key, sign up for a free account at https://openweathermap.org/api and navigate to the API keys section of your dashboard. Copy your API key for use in the connection configuration.

   After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

   • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
   • APIKey: Set this to your OpenWeatherMap API key.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

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

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.api.jar
   

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

   

   You can see the JDBC URL specified in the resource definition below.

   
   <Resource name="jdbc/api"   auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource" driverClassName="cdata.jdbc.api.APIDriver" factory="org.apache.tomcat.jdbc.pool.DataSourceFactory" url="jdbc:api:Profile=C:\path\to\OpenWeatherMap.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings="APIKey=your_openweathermap_api_key";" maxActive="20" maxIdle="10" maxWait="-1" />
   

   To allow a single application to access OpenWeatherMap data, add the code above to the context.xml in the application's META-INF directory.

   For a shared resource configuration, add the code above to the context.xml located in $CATALINA_BASE/conf. A shared resource configuration provides connectivity to OpenWeatherMap for all applications.

3. Add a reference to the resource to the web.xml for the application.

   
     OpenWeatherMap data JSP
     jdbc/API
     javax.sql.DataSource
     Container
   
   

4. Initialize connections from the connection pool:

   Context initContext = new InitialContext();
   Context envContext  = (Context)initContext.lookup("java:/comp/env");
   DataSource ds = (DataSource)envContext.lookup("jdbc/API");
   Connection conn = ds.getConnection();
     

More Tomcat Integration

The steps above show how to connect to OpenWeatherMap data in a simple connection pooling scenario. For more use cases and information, see the JNDI Datasource How-To in the Tomcat documentation.