Access SAP Business Warehouse Data in Mule Applications Using the CData JDBC Driver

The CData JDBC Driver for SAP Business Warehouse connects SAP Business Warehouse data to Mule applications enabling read functionality with familiar SQL queries. The JDBC Driver allows users to easily create Mule applications to backup, transform, report, and analyze SAP Business Warehouse data.

This article demonstrates how to use the CData JDBC Driver for SAP Business Warehouse inside of a Mule project to create a Web interface for SAP Business Warehouse data. The application created allows you to request SAP Business Warehouse data using an HTTP request and have the results returned as JSON. The exact same procedure outlined below can be used with any CData JDBC Driver to create a Web interface for the hundreds of available data sources.

1. Create a new Mule Project in Anypoint Studio.
2. Add an HTTP Connector to the Message Flow.
3. Configure the address for the HTTP Connector.
4. Add a Database Select Connector to the same flow, after the HTTP Connector.
5. Create a new Connection (or edit an existing one) and configure the properties.
   • Set Connection to "Generic Connection"
   • Select the CData JDBC Driver JAR file in the Required Libraries section (e.g. cdata.jdbc.sapbusinesswarehouse.jar).
   • Set the URL to the connection string for SAP Business Warehouse

     To connect to SAP Business Warehouse, set the URL property to a valid SAP Business Warehouse server base URL. The driver must connect to SAP Business Warehouse instances hosted over HTTP with XMLA access.

     The driver supports the following authentication schemes via the AuthScheme property:

     • None: Anonymous authentication, if available on the server.
     • Basic: Set User and Password and set AuthScheme to Basic.
     • Kerberos: See the Using Kerberos section of the help documentation for the required Kerberos properties.

     By default, the driver attempts to negotiate SSL/TLS by checking the server's certificate against the system's trusted certificate store. To specify another certificate, see the SSLServerCert property for the available formats.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

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

     		java -jar cdata.jdbc.sapbusinesswarehouse.jar
     		

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

   • Set the Driver class name to cdata.jdbc.sapbusinesswarehouse.SAPBusinessWarehouseDriver.
   • Click Test Connection.
6. Set the SQL Query Text to a SQL query to request SAP Business Warehouse data. For example:

   SELECT CustomerCount, City FROM Sales WHERE Country = 'US'

   
7. Add a Transform Message Component to the flow.
8. Set the Output script to the following to convert the payload to JSON:

   %dw 2.0
   output application/json
   ---
   payload
           

   
9. To view your SAP Business Warehouse data, navigate to the address you configured for the HTTP Connector (localhost:8081 by default): http://localhost:8081. The SAP Business Warehouse data is available as JSON in your Web browser and any other tools capable of consuming JSON endpoints.

At this point, you have a simple Web interface for working with SAP Business Warehouse data (as JSON data) in custom apps and a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools. Download a free, 30 day trial of the JDBC Driver for SAP Business Warehouse and see the CData difference in your Mule Applications today.