Use the CData JDBC Driver for HCL Domino in MicroStrategy

MicroStrategy is an analytics and mobility platform that enables data-driven innovation. When you pair MicroStrategy with the CData JDBC Driver for HCL Domino, you gain database-like access to live HCL Domino data from MicroStrategy, expanding your reporting and analytics capabilities. In this article, we walk through creating a database instance for HCL Domino in MicroStrategy Developer and create a Warehouse Catalog for the HCL Domino data.

The CData JDBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live HCL Domino data in MicroStrategy due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from MicroStrategy to HCL Domino, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to HCL Domino and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. With built-in dynamic metadata querying, you can visualize and analyze HCL Domino data using native MicroStrategy data types.

Connect to HCL Domino in MicroStrategy Developer

You can connect to HCL Domino in MicroStrategy Developer by adding a database instance based on the CData JDBC Driver for HCL Domino.^* Before you begin, you will need to install the JDBC Driver for HCL Domino on the machine hosting the MicroStrategy Intelligence Server that your instance of MicroStrategy Developer is connected to.

1. Open MicroStrategy Developer and select a Project Source.
2. Navigate to Administration -> Configuration Managers -> Database Instances and right-click to add a new instance.
3. Name the instance, select Generic DBMS as the database connection type, and create a new database connection.
4. In the database connection wizard, name the connection and create a new Database Login name, setting the user and password for HCL Domino.
5. On the Advanced tab for the connection wizard, set the additional connection string parameters as follows.
   • Add the JDBC keyword to the connection string.
   • Set MSTR_JDBC_JAR_FOLDER to the path of the directory containing the JAR file for the JDBC driver. (C:\Program Files\CData JDBC Driver for HCL Domino\lib\ on Windows.)
   • Set DRIVER to cdata.jdbc.domino.DominoDriver, the driver class.
   • Set URL to the JDBC URL for the HCL Domino driver, which contains the necessary connection properties.

     Prerequisites

     The connector requires the Proton component to be installed. Normally, Proton is distributed as part of the AppDev pack. See the HCL documentation for instructions on acquiring and installing Proton or the AppDev pack.

     Once the Proton service is installed and running, you will also need to create a user account and download its Internet certificate. This certificate can be used to set the connector certificate connection properties.

     Authenticating to Domino

     • Server: The name or IP address of the server running Domino with the Proton service.
     • Port: The port number that the Proton service is listening on.
     • Database: The name of the database file, including the .nsf extension.
     • SSLClientCertType: This must match the format of the certificate file. Typically this will be either PEMKEY_FILE for .pem certificates or PFXFILE for .pfx certificates.
     • SSLClientCert: The path to the certificate file.
     • SSLServerCert: This can be set to (*) if you trust the server. This is usually the case, but if you want to perform SSL validation, you may provide a certificate or thumbprint instead. See the documentation for SSLServerCert for details.

     Additional Server Configuration

     The connector supports querying Domino views if any are defined. Before views can be queried by the connector they must be registered with the design catalog.

     Please refer to the Catalog Administration section of the AppDev pack documentation for details on how to do this.

     Built-in Connection String Designer

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

     java -jar cdata.jdbc.domino.jar

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

     When you configure the JDBC URL, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

   Typical additional connection string properties follow:

   JDBC;MSTR_JDBC_JAR_FOLDER=PATH\TO\JAR\;DRIVER=cdata.jdbc.domino.DominoDriver;URL={jdbc:domino:Server=https://domino.corp.com;Database=names.nsf;Port=3002;SSLClientCertType=PEMKEY_FILE;SSLClientCert=full_path_of_certificate.pem;SSLServerCert=*};
6. Ensure that you have not selected an ODBC data source (this will trigger MicroStrategy to use the additional connection string parameters to build the database instance) and click OK.
7. Click OK to close the database instance wizard.
8. In the Project Source, right-click the project and open the Project configuration.
9. Navigate to Database Instances, select the newly created database instance, and click OK.
10. Close MicroStrategy Developer and restart the connected MicroStrategy Intelligence Server to complete the database instance creation.

With the database instance configured, you will now be able to connect to HCL Domino data from the Warehouse Catalog and Data Import.

Connect to HCL Domino Data from the Warehouse Catalog

Once you have created a database instance based on the JDBC Driver for HCL Domino, you can connect to data from the Warehouse Catalog.

1. Select your project and click Schema -> Warehouse Catalog.
2. In the Read Settings for the Catalog, click Settings and set the queries to retrieve the schema:
   • To retrieve the list of tables, use the following query: SELECT * FROM SYS_TABLES
   • To retrieve the list of columns for selected tables, use the following query: SELECT DISTINCT CatalogName NAME_SPACE, TableName TAB_NAME, ColumnName COL_NAME, DataTypeName DATA_TYPE, Length DATA_LEN, NumericPrecision DATA_PREC, NumericScale DATA_SCALE FROM SYS_TABLECOLUMNS WHERE TableName IN (#TABLE_LIST#) ORDER BY 1,2,3
3. Select tables to be used in the project.

Using the CData JDBC Driver for HCL Domino in MicroStrategy, you can easily create robust visualizations and reports on HCL Domino data. Read our other articles on connecting to HCL Domino in MictroStrategy Web and connecting to HCL Domino in MicroStrategy Desktop for more information.

Note: Connecting using a JDBC Driver requires a 3- or 4-Tier Architecture.