Integrate Twitter Data in Your Informatica Cloud Instance

Informatica Cloud allows you to perform extract, transform, and load (ETL) tasks in the cloud. With the Cloud Secure Agent and the CData JDBC Driver for Twitter, you get live access to Twitter data, directly within Informatica Cloud. In this article, we will walk through downloading and registering the Cloud Secure Agent, connecting to Twitter through the JDBC Driver and generating a mapping that can be used in any Informatica Cloud process.

Informatica Cloud Secure Agent

To work with the Twitter data through the JDBC Driver, install the Cloud Secure Agent.

1. Navigate to the Administrator page in Informatica Cloud
2. Select the Runtime Environments tab
3. Click "Download Secure Agent"
4. Make note of the Install Token
5. Run the installer on the client machine and register the Cloud Secure Agent with your username and install token

NOTE: It may take some time for all of the Cloud Secure Agent services to get up and running.

Connecting to the Twitter JDBC Driver

With the Cloud Secure Agent installed and running, you are ready to connect to Twitter through the JDBC Driver. Start by clicking the Connections tab and clicking New Connection. Fill in the following properties for the connection:

• Connection Name: Name your connection (i.e.: CData Twitter Connection)
• Type: Select "JDBC_IC (Informatica Cloud)"
• Runtime Environment: Select the runtime environment where you installed the Cloud Secure Agent
• JDBC Connection URL: Set this to the JDBC URL for Twitter. Your URL will look similar to the following:
  
  jdbc:twitter:InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;

  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.

  Built-In Connection String Designer

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

  java -jar cdata.jdbc.twitter.jar

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

• JDBC Jar Directory: Set this to the lib folder in the installation location for the JDBC Driver (on Windows, typically C:\Program Files\CData[product_name]\)
• Driver Class: Set this to cdata.jdbc.twitter.TwitterDriver
• Username: Set this to a placeholder value (since Twitter does not require a username)
• Password: Set this to a placeholder value (since Twitter does not require a password)

Create a Mapping for Twitter Data

With the connection to Twitter configured, we can now access Twitter data in any Informatica process. The steps below walk through creating a mapping for Twitter to another data target.

1. Navigate to the Data Integration page
2. Click New.. and select Mapping from the Mappings tab
3. Click the Source Object and in the Source tab, select the Connection and set the Source Type
4. Click "Select" to choose the table to map
5. In the Fields tab, select the fields from the Twitter table to map
6. Click the Target object and configure the Target source, table and fields. In the Field Mapping tab, map the source fields to the target fields.

With the mapping configured, you are ready to start integrating live Twitter data with any of the supported connections in Informatica Cloud. Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData JDBC Driver for Twitter and start working with your live Twitter data in Informatica Cloud today.