Access Live Twitter Data in TIBCO Data Virtualization

TIBCO Data Virtualization (TDV) is an enterprise data virtualization solution that orchestrates access to multiple and varied data sources. When paired with the CData TIBCO DV Adapter for Twitter, you get federated access to live Twitter data directly within TIBCO Data Virtualization. This article walks through deploying an adapter and creating a new data source based on Twitter.

With built-in optimized data processing, the CData TIBCO DV Adapter offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Twitter data. When you issue complex SQL queries to Twitter, the adapter pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Twitter. Its built-in dynamic metadata querying allows you to work with and analyze Twitter data using native data types.

Deploy the Twitter TIBCO DV Adapter

1. In a console, navigate to the bin folder in the TDV Server installation directory. If there is a current version of the adapter installed, you will need to undeploy it.

   .\server_util.bat -server localhost -user admin -password ******** -undeploy -version 1 -name Twitter
   

2. Extract the CData TIBCO DV Adapter to a local folder and deploy the JAR file (tdv.twitter.jar) to the server from the extract location.

   .\server_util.bat -server localhost -user admin -password ******** -deploy -package /PATH/TO/tdv.twitter.jar
   

You may need to restart the server to ensure the new JAR file is loaded properly, which can be accomplished by running the composite.bat script located at: C:\Program Files\TIBCO\TDV Server <version>\bin. Note that reauthenticating to the TDV Studio is required after restarting the server.

Sample Restart Call

.\composite.bat monitor restart

Authenticate with Twitter Using OAuth

Since Twitter authenticates using the OAuth protocol and TDV Studio does not support browser-based authentication internally, you will need to create and run a simple Java application to retrieve the OAuth tokens. Once retrieved, the tokens are used to connect to Twitter directly from the adapter.

The following code sample shows how to authenticate with Twitter. You will simply need to execute the Java application with the tdv.twitter.jar file in the class path.

TwitterOAuth oauth = new TwitterOAuth();  
oauth.generateOAuthSettingsFile("InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;" + 
                                  "" + 
                                  "OAuthSettingsLocation=C:\twitter\OAuthSettings.txt;");

Once you deploy the adapter and authenticate, you can create a new data source for Twitter in TDV Studio.

Create a Twitter Data Source in TDV Studio

With the CData TIBCO DV Adapter for Twitter, you can easily create a data source for Twitter and introspect the data source to add resources to TDV.

Create the Data Source

1. Right-click on the folder you wish to add the data source to and select New -> New Data Source.
2. Scroll until you find the adapter (e.g. Twitter) and click Next.
3. Name the data source (e.g. CData Twitter Source).

4. Fill in the required connection properties.

   All tables require authentication. You can connect using your User and Password or OAuth. To authenticate using OAuth, you can use the embedded OAuthClientId, OAuthClientSecret, and CallbackURL or you can register an app to obtain your own.

   If you intend to communicate with Twitter only as the currently authenticated user, then you can obtain the OAuthAccessToken and OAuthAccessTokenSecret directly by registering an app.

   See the Getting Started chapter in the help documentation for a guide to using OAuth.

   NOTE: Set the OAuthSettingsLocation property in the DV Adapter to the same value you used when performing the OAuth authentication (see above).

5. Click Create & Close.

Introspect the Data Source

Once the data source is created, you can introspect the data source by right-clicking and selecting Open. In the dashboard, click Add/Remove Resources and select the Tables, Views, and Stored Procedures to include as part of the data source. Click Next and Finish to add the selected Twitter tables, views, and stored procedures as resources.

After creating and introspecting the data source, you are ready to work with Twitter data in TIBCO Data Virtualization just like you would any other relational data source. You can create views, query using SQL, publish the data source, and more.