Build Custom ODBC/JDBC Connectors for REST Data Sources Using DataDirect OpenAccess SDK

Need to access RESTful data when your database or BI platform can’t speak the language? Progress DataDirect makes it easy to translate your business-critical data.

Enterprises are more and more dependent on application and platform data—in addition to their on-premises data—to get an accurate picture of their business. BI & analytics programs work well with SQL data, but come up short when talking to REST APIs. In this tutorial, we’ll show you how to quickly solve this problem by building a custom ODBC/JDBC connector with DataDirect OpenAccess SDK.

REST APIs have quickly become the default API protocol. The vast majority of data available on the web is exposed via a REST API. There are many reasons for this RESTful takeover, primarily the ease of building REST APIs and its compatibility with JSON—an increasingly popular data structure. 

Despite the growth of this protocol standard, most databases and BI platforms cannot speak REST. This presents a big problem when users are trying to manage and analyze data from ISVs. Conversely, this inability to communicate can present challenges for ISVs who want to enable user access to their application data. To get these disparate entities to talk to each other, you’re going to need a translator.  Thankfully, Progress DataDirect can help. In just hours, the DataDirect OpenAccess SDK enables you to build a custom ODBC or JDBC connector to translate RESTful data into a format you and your customers can use to manage and analyze business-critical data. 

Build a Custom ODBC/JDBC Connector in Two Hours

It’s relatively easy to build a custom connector for any REST Service using OpenAccess SDK. My colleague, Saikrishna Bobba, has created a step-by-step tutorial for both ODBC and JDBC.  These guides will walk you through each step to install the SDK and build the connector in about two hours.  

ODBC Tutorial

JDBC Tutorial

Now you have everything you need to build your own ODBC, JDBC, ADO.NET and OLEDB data connectors. Go ahead and download DataDirect OpenAccess SDK and get started!

Reach out to us online with any questions or leave us a message in the comments below.