Connect to IBM Cloud Object Storage Data in RapidMiner

This article shows how you can easily integrate the CData JDBC driver for IBM Cloud Object Storage into your processes in RapidMiner. This article uses the CData JDBC Driver for IBM Cloud Object Storage to transfer IBM Cloud Object Storage data to a process in RapidMiner.

Connect to IBM Cloud Object Storage in RapidMiner as a JDBC Data Source

You can follow the procedure below to establish a JDBC connection to IBM Cloud Object Storage:

1. Add a new database driver for IBM Cloud Object Storage: Click Connections -> Manage Database Drivers.
2. In the resulting wizard, click the Add button and enter a name for the connection.
3. Enter the prefix for the JDBC URL: jdbc:ibmcloudobjectstorage:
4. Enter the path to the cdata.jdbc.ibmcloudobjectstorage.jar file, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
5. Enter the driver class: cdata.jdbc.ibmcloudobjectstorage.IBMCloudObjectStorageDriver
6. Create a new IBM Cloud Object Storage connection: Click Connections -> Manage Database Connections.
7. Enter a name for your connection.
8. For Database System, select the IBM Cloud Object Storage driver you configured previously.
9. Enter your connection string in the Host box.

   Register a New Instance of Cloud Object Storage

   If you do not already have Cloud Object Storage in your IBM Cloud account, follow the procedure below to install an instance of SQL Query in your account:

   1. Log in to your IBM Cloud account.
   2. Navigate to the page, choose a name for your instance and click Create. You will be redirected to the instance of Cloud Object Storage you just created.

   Connecting using OAuth Authentication

   There are certain connection properties you need to set before you can connect. You can obtain these as follows:

   API Key

   To connect with IBM Cloud Object Storage, you need an API Key. You can obtain this as follows:

   1. Log in to your IBM Cloud account.
   2. Navigate to the Platform API Keys page.
   3. On the middle-right corner click "Create an IBM Cloud API Key" to create a new API Key.
   4. In the pop-up window, specify the API Key name and click "Create". Note the API Key as you can never access it again from the dashboard.

   Cloud Object Storage CRN

   If you have multiple accounts, you will need to specify the CloudObjectStorageCRN explicitly. To find the appropriate value, you can:

   • Query the Services view. This will list your IBM Cloud Object Storage instances along with the CRN for each.
   • Locate the CRN directly in IBM Cloud. To do so, navigate to your IBM Cloud Dashboard. In the Resource List, Under Storage, select your Cloud Object Storage resource to get its CRN.

   Connecting to Data

   You can now set the following to connect to data:

   • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
   • ApiKey: Set this to your API key which was noted during setup.
   • CloudObjectStorageCRN (Optional): Set this to the cloud object storage CRN you want to work with. While the connector attempts to retrieve this automatically, specifying this explicitly is recommended if you have more than Cloud Object Storage account.

   When you connect, the connector completes the OAuth process.

   1. Extracts the access token and authenticates requests.
   2. Saves OAuth values in OAuthSettingsLocation to be persisted across connections.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

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

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.ibmcloudobjectstorage.jar

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

   A typical connection string is below:

   ApiKey=myApiKey;CloudObjectStorageCRN=MyInstanceCRN;Region=myRegion;OAuthClientId=MyOAuthClientId;OAuthClientSecret=myOAuthClientSecret;
10. Enter your username and password if necessary.

You can now use your IBM Cloud Object Storage connection with the various RapidMiner operators in your process. To retrieve IBM Cloud Object Storage data, drag the Retrieve operator from the Operators view. With the Retrieve operator selected, you can then define which table to retrieve in the Parameters view by clicking the folder icon next to the "repository entry." In the resulting Repository Browser, you can expand your connection node to select the desired example set.

Finally, wire the output to the Retrieve process to a result, and run the process to see the IBM Cloud Object Storage data.