Build a PostgreSQL Interface for SAP Business Warehouse Data using the CData JDBC Driver

There are a vast number of PostgreSQL clients available on the Internet. From standard Drivers to BI and Analytics tools, PostgreSQL is a popular interface for data access. Using our JDBC Drivers, you can now create PostgreSQL entry-points that you can connect to from any standard client.

To access SAP Business Warehouse data as a PostgreSQL database, use the CData JDBC Driver for SAP Business Warehouse and a JDBC foreign data wrapper (FDW). In this article, we compile the FDW, install it, and query SAP Business Warehouse data from PostgreSQL Server.

Connect to SAP Business Warehouse Data as a JDBC Data Source

To connect to SAP Business Warehouse as a JDBC data source, you will need the following:

• Driver JAR path: The JAR is located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.

• Driver class:

  cdata.jdbc.sapbusinesswarehouse.SAPBusinessWarehouseDriver
  

• JDBC URL: The URL must start with "jdbc:sapbusinesswarehouse:" and can include any of the connection properties in name-value pairs separated with semicolons.

  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.

  

  A typical JDBC URL is below:

  jdbc:sapbusinesswarehouse:URL=https://mysapserver:8000;AuthScheme=Basic;User=username;Password=password;
  

Build the JDBC Foreign Data Wrapper

The Foreign Data Wrapper can be installed as an extension to PostgreSQL, without recompiling PostgreSQL. The jdbc2_fdw extension is used as an example (downloadable here).

1. Add a symlink from the shared object for your version of the JRE to /usr/lib/libjvm.so. For example:

   ln -s /usr/lib/jvm/java-6-openjdk/jre/lib/amd64/server/libjvm.so /usr/lib/libjvm.so
   

2. Start the build:

   make install USE_PGXS=1
   

Query SAP Business Warehouse Data as a PostgreSQL Database

After you have installed the extension, follow the steps below to start executing queries to SAP Business Warehouse data:

1. Log into your database.
2. Load the extension for the database:

   CREATE EXTENSION jdbc2_fdw;
   

3. Create a server object for SAP Business Warehouse:

   CREATE SERVER SAPBusinessWarehouse 
   FOREIGN DATA WRAPPER jdbc2_fdw OPTIONS (
   drivername 'cdata.jdbc.sapbusinesswarehouse.SAPBusinessWarehouseDriver',
   url 'jdbc:sapbusinesswarehouse:URL=https://mysapserver:8000;AuthScheme=Basic;User=username;Password=password;',
   querytimeout '15',
   jarfile '/home/MyUser/CData/CData\ JDBC\ Driver\ for\ Salesforce MyDriverEdition/lib/cdata.jdbc.sapbusinesswarehouse.jar'); 
   

4. Create a user mapping for the username and password of a user known to the MySQL daemon.

   CREATE USER MAPPING for postgres SERVER SAPBusinessWarehouse OPTIONS (
   username 'admin', 
   password 'test');
   

5. Create a foreign table in your local database:

   postgres=# CREATE FOREIGN TABLE sales (
   sales_id text,
   sales_CustomerCount text,
   sales_City numeric) 
   SERVER SAPBusinessWarehouse OPTIONS (
   table_name 'sales');
   

postgres=# SELECT * FROM sales;