Configure the CData JDBC Driver for Respond.io 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 Respond.io data from a connection pool in Tomcat.

Connect to Respond.io 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.

   Start by setting the Profile connection property to the location of the Respondio Profile on disk (e.g. C:\profiles\Respondio.apip). Next, set the ProfileSettings connection property to the connection string for Respondio (see below).

   Respondio API Profile Settings

   Respond.io uses API key authentication. To obtain an API key:

   1. Log in to your Respond.io account.
   2. Navigate to Settings in your workspace.
   3. Select Developer under the Integrations section.
   4. Copy the API key displayed on the page.

   After obtaining your API key, set the following connection properties:

   • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.

   Set the following in the ProfileSettings connection property:

   • APIKey: Set this to your Respond.io API key.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

   For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Respond.io 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:\profiles\Respondio.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings='APIKey=your_api_key';" maxActive="20" maxIdle="10" maxWait="-1" />
   

   To allow a single application to access Respond.io 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 Respond.io for all applications.

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

   
   
     Respond.io 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 Respond.io data in a simple connection pooling scenario. For more use cases and information, see the JNDI Datasource How-To in the Tomcat documentation.