Integration made easy: Infor Data Lake & Java

Hi all! Today we got a new job to do! Extract datas from Infor Data Lake (only available on Infor Cloud), more precisely from Infor M3, and we’re going to use them in a Java Program.

Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash

In a future post we’ll see how to use this JDBC in Pentaho: we’re using this tool to load an external data warehouse (connected to a legacy BI)

In the meanwhile I’d like to introduce myself: I’m Davide Guastalli, Senior Technical Consultant on Infor M3 and on the whole Infor OS stack.

What we’re doing today?

• Obtain the JDBC driver
• Create the credentials
• Do a simple Java project in eclipse

Note: It’s not an article about Java, so we’re talking about that superficially.

Let’s do it!

Obtain the JDBC Driver.

As the JDBC Driver is covered by copyright, as an infor proprietary connector, you can download that from your Infor CE Tenant.

Data Lake is part of Infor ION Desk, so let’s go finding that in ION page:

You can follow this path:

Where to find JDBC Driver

You’ll see a warning message, because JDBC driver is separately licensed by Infor: it’s something like “Extract data from Infor Cloud” or similar. Please be sure you’ve the right do use it before download the JDBC Driver.

Once we complete the download we’ll have our .zip file containing license and library file.

Zip detail

Create the credentials

We’re now at step nr. 2: we need some credentials to let Data lake know that we can read data!

This procedure allow us to download an .ionapi file that we have to put in the same directory of the JDBC .jar library.

First of all we need access to ION API to create our .ionapi

Aggiungiamo una nuova app autorizzata.

We need to choose “Backend Service” and write “Infor Compass JDBC Driver ”as name. It’s mandatory (at least at this very moment) to choose this fixed name.
We can put the same in the description too.

Now we proceed to download the credential file:

In the next screen the system will ask us if we need to impersonate an existing user.

We are going to answer Yes, activate “Create service account” and choose our user name.

Scarichiamo le nostre credenziali.

Please look carefully at the note: it’s the only chance to download this file, please store it with care.

Do a simple Java project in eclipse

Let’s create a new simple java project: we will call il simply JavaDataLake.
Now we have to add our library

To do that, create a folder called “lib” under the main project directory

Copy and paste our jdbc driver and the last downloaded .ionapi file containing user credentials.

La mia directory “lib”.

Refresh the project and add our lib to the project libraries to make the jdbc working.

Now, we add our sample JavaDataLake class with the main function.

Using Driver Manager setups will be:

• No username and password required (.ionapi file will be used automatically)
• use the driver com.infor.idl.jdbc.Driver
• the connection string will be: jdbc:infordatalake://TENANT_NAME , where TENANT_NAME will represent our customer tenant.

A sample screenshot of what I did

Java code snippet to connect Data lake

Please remember that Data Lake jdbc allow us only to read that and not write into it.

Let’s do a simple select from an M3 table replicated in Data Lake:

Add two basic import to our class

• import java.sql.Statement
• import java.sql.ResultSet

And write the real read code:

Lettura di DataLake attraverso Java

And.. we’ve done it! We’re now able to read from Infor Data Lake via JDBC.

Stay tuned for other samples and suggestions.