How to connect PolyBase to Oracle Financials Cloud

PolyBase for SQL Server allows you to query external data by using the same Transact-SQL syntax used to query a database table. When paired with the CData ODBC Driver for Oracle Financials Cloud, you get access to your Oracle Financials Cloud data directly alongside your SQL Server data. This article describes creating an external data source and external tables to grant access to live Oracle Financials Cloud data using T-SQL queries.

NOTE: PolyBase is only available on SQL Server 19 and above, and only for Standard SQL Server.

The CData ODBC drivers offer unmatched performance for interacting with live Oracle Financials Cloud data using PolyBase due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from SQL Server to Oracle Financials Cloud, the driver pushes down supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Oracle Financials Cloud and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. And with PolyBase, you can also join SQL Server data with Oracle Financials Cloud data, using a single query to pull data from distributed sources.

Connect to Oracle Financials Cloud

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. To create an external data source in SQL Server using PolyBase, configure a System DSN (CData Oracle Financials Cloud Sys is created automatically).

Using Basic Authentication

You must set the following to authenticate to Oracle ERP:

• Url: The Url of the account to connect to. Typically, the URL of your Oracle Cloud service. For example, https://servername.fa.us2.oraclecloud.com.
• User: The username of your account.
• Password: The password of your account.

Click "Test Connection" to ensure that the DSN is connected to Oracle Financials Cloud properly. Navigate to the Tables tab to review the table definitions for Oracle Financials Cloud.

Create an External Data Source for Oracle Financials Cloud Data

After configuring the connection, you need to create a master encryption key and a credential database for the external data source.

Creating a Master Encryption Key

Execute the following SQL command to create a new master key, 'ENCRYPTION,' to encrypt the credentials for the external data source.

CREATE MASTER KEY ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = 'password';

Creating a Credential Database

Execute the following SQL command to create credentials for the external data source connected to Oracle Financials Cloud data.

NOTE: IDENTITY and SECRET correspond with the User and Password properties for Oracle Financials Cloud.

CREATE DATABASE SCOPED CREDENTIAL oracleerp_creds
WITH IDENTITY = 'oracleerp_username', SECRET = 'oracleerp_password';

Create an External Data Source for Oracle Financials Cloud

Execute a CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE SQL command to create an external data source for Oracle Financials Cloud with PolyBase:

• Set the LOCATION parameter , using the DSN and credentials configured earlier.

For Oracle Financials Cloud, set SERVERNAME to the URL or address for your server (e.g. 'localhost' or '127.0.0.1' for local servers; the remote URL for remote servers). Leave PORT empty. PUSHDOWN is set to ON by default, meaning the ODBC Driver can leverage server-side processing for complex queries.

CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE cdata_oracleerp_source
WITH ( 
  LOCATION = 'odbc://SERVER_URL',
  CONNECTION_OPTIONS = 'DSN=CData Oracle Financials Cloud Sys',
  -- PUSHDOWN = ON | OFF,
  CREDENTIAL = oracleerp_creds
);

Create External Tables for Oracle Financials Cloud

After creating the external data source, use CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE statements to link to Oracle Financials Cloud data from your SQL Server instance. The table column definitions must match those exposed by the CData ODBC Driver for Oracle Financials Cloud. You can refer to the Tables tab of the DSN Configuration Wizard to see the table definition.

Sample CREATE TABLE Statement

The statement to create an external table based on a Oracle Financials Cloud Invoices would look similar to the following:

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE Invoices(
  InvoiceId [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  Amount [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  ...
) WITH ( 
  LOCATION='Invoices',
  DATA_SOURCE=cdata_oracleerp_source
);

Having created external tables for Oracle Financials Cloud in your SQL Server instance, you are now able to query local and remote data simultaneously. Thanks to built-in query processing in the CData ODBC Driver, you know that as much query processing as possible is being pushed to Oracle Financials Cloud, freeing up local resources and computing power. Download a free, 30-day trial of the ODBC Driver for Oracle Financials Cloud and start working with live Oracle Financials Cloud data alongside your SQL Server data today.