Connect to Sage 300 Data as an External Data Source using PolyBase

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 Sage 300, you get access to your Sage 300 data directly alongside your SQL Server data. This article describes creating an external data source and external tables to grant access to live Sage 300 data using T-SQL queries.

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

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for Sage 300, allowing you to query data from Sage 300 without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Sage 300, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Sage 300 data quickly.

Configure Sage 300 Connectivity for PolyBase

Connectivity to Sage 300 from PolyBase is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Sage 300 data from PolyBase, we start by creating and configuring a Sage 300 connection.

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

2. Select "Sage 300" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Sage 300.

   Sage 300 requires some initial setup in order to communicate over the Sage 300 Web API.

   • Set up the security groups for the Sage 300 user. Give the Sage 300 user access to the option under Security Groups (per each module required).
   • Edit both web.config files in the /Online/Web and /Online/WebApi folders; change the key AllowWebApiAccessForAdmin to true. Restart the webAPI app-pool for the settings to take.
   • Once the user access is configured, click https://server/Sage300WebApi/ to ensure access to the web API.

   Authenticate to Sage 300 using Basic authentication.

   Connect Using Basic Authentication

   You must provide values for the following properties to successfully authenticate to Sage 300. Note that the provider reuses the session opened by Sage 300 using cookies. This means that your credentials are used only on the first request to open the session. After that, cookies returned from Sage 300 are used for authentication.

   • Url: Set this to the url of the server hosting Sage 300. Construct a URL for the Sage 300 Web API as follows: {protocol}://{host-application-path}/v{version}/{tenant}/ For example, http://localhost/Sage300WebApi/v1.0/-/.
   • User: Set this to the username of your account.
   • Password: Set this to the password of your account.
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Sage 300 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 Sage 300 data from Polybase.

Create an External Data Source for Sage 300 Data

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

Creating a Credential Database

Execute the following SQL command to create credentials for the external data source connected to Sage 300 data.

NOTE: Set IDENTITY to your Connect AI username and set SECRET to your Personal Access Token.

CREATE DATABASE SCOPED CREDENTIAL ConnectCloudCredentials
WITH IDENTITY = 'yourusername', SECRET = 'yourPAT';

Create an External Data Source for Sage 300

Execute a CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE SQL command to create an external data source for Sage 300 with PolyBase:

CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE ConnectCloudInstance
WITH ( 
  LOCATION = 'sqlserver://tds.cdata.com:14333',
  PUSHDOWN = ON,
  CREDENTIAL = ConnectCloudCredentials
);

Create External Tables for Sage 300

After creating the external data source, use CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE statements to link to Sage 300 data from your SQL Server instance. The table column definitions must match those exposed by CData Connect AI. You can use the Data Explorer in Connect AI to see the table definition.

Sample CREATE TABLE Statement

Execute a CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE SQL command to create the external table(s), using the collation and setting the LOCATION to three-part notation for the connection, catalog, and table. The statement to create an external table based on a Sage 300 OEInvoices would look similar to the following.

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE OEInvoices(
  InvoiceUniquifier COLLATE [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  ApprovedLimit COLLATE [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  ...
) WITH ( 
  LOCATION='Sage3001.Sage300.OEInvoices',
  DATA_SOURCE=ConnectCloudInstance
);

Having created external tables for Sage 300 in your SQL Server instance, you are now able to query local and remote data simultaneously. To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your SQL Server database, try CData Connect AI today!