Integrate OData Source Using Teiid

Teiid 8.3.x release has a new translator "odata", that supports consuming of OData sources. Using this translator a user can integrate data from a OData source with other sources in Teiid.

If you like to know what OData is and Teiid support for it, please read this previous post http://teiid.blogspot.com/2013/02/odata-support-in-teiid.html

In this blog, we will write a Teiid VDB, that shows how to consume a OData source, and how Teiid uses OData's CSDL metadata document to expose it in relational form such that it can be integrated with other sources.

So, let's begin..

In a Teiid system, OData translator is a extension of the "ws" web services translator, since all OData queries are REST based web service calls, and results are published in "atom/pub" or "json" format, it uses the same resource adapter "teiid-connector-ws.rar". For this example, we will use a example OData service at http://services.odata.org/Northwind/Northwind.svc/

The below is a CLI Script to create connection to OData source

 
/subsystem=resource-adapters/resource-adapter=northwindDS:add(module=org.jboss.teiid.resource-adapter.webservice)
/subsystem=resource-adapters/resource-adapter=northwindDS/connection-definitions=northwindDS:add(jndi-name=java:/northwindDS, class-name=org.teiid.resource.adapter.ws.WSManagedConnectionFactory, enabled=true, use-java-context=true)
/subsystem=resource-adapters/resource-adapter=northwindDS/connection-definitions=northwindDS/config-properties=EndPoint:add(value=http://services.odata.org/Northwind/Northwind.svc)
/subsystem=resource-adapters/resource-adapter=northwindDS:activate

Once the connection is created, let's create a Dynamic VDB (northwind-vdb.xml) that uses the connection created above and defines virtual database

<vdb name="northwind-rw" version="1">
    <model name="nw">
        <property name="importer.importKeys" value="true"/>
        <property name="importer.importProcedures" value="true">
         <source connection-jndi-name="java:/northwindDS" name="northwind-connector" translator-name="odata"/>
    </model>
</vdb>

When you deploy the above VDB in Teiid server, it automatically imports the metadata of this web service from http://services.odata.org/Northwind/Northwind.svc/$metadata and creates relational structure based on it.

For example, from the metadata call above one of the entity type in the CSDL document looks like below

<EntityType Name="Customer">
  <Key><PropertyRef Name="CustomerID"/></Key>
  <Property Name="CustomerID" Type="Edm.String" Nullable="false" MaxLength="5" Unicode="true" FixedLength="true"/>
  <Property Name="CompanyName" Type="Edm.String" Nullable="false" MaxLength="40" Unicode="true" FixedLength="false"/>
  <Property Name="ContactName" Type="Edm.String" Nullable="true" MaxLength="30" Unicode="true" FixedLength="false"/>
  <Property Name="ContactTitle" Type="Edm.String" Nullable="true" MaxLength="30" Unicode="true" FixedLength="false"/>
  <Property Name="Address" Type="Edm.String" Nullable="true" MaxLength="60" Unicode="true" FixedLength="false"/>
  <Property Name="City" Type="Edm.String" Nullable="true" MaxLength="15" Unicode="true" FixedLength="false"/>
  <Property Name="Region" Type="Edm.String" Nullable="true" MaxLength="15" Unicode="true" FixedLength="false"/>
  <Property Name="PostalCode" Type="Edm.String" Nullable="true" MaxLength="10" Unicode="true" FixedLength="false"/>
  <Property Name="Country" Type="Edm.String" Nullable="true" MaxLength="15" Unicode="true" FixedLength="false"/>
  <Property Name="Phone" Type="Edm.String" Nullable="true" MaxLength="24" Unicode="true" FixedLength="false"/>
  <Property Name="Fax" Type="Edm.String" Nullable="true" MaxLength="24" Unicode="true" FixedLength="false"/>
  <NavigationProperty Name="Orders" Relationship="NorthwindModel.FK_Orders_Customers" FromRole="Customers" ToRole="Orders"/>
  <NavigationProperty Name="CustomerDemographics" Relationship="NorthwindModel.CustomerCustomerDemo" FromRole="Customers" ToRole="CustomerDemographics"/>
</EntityType>

It will be converted to a relational table like below in the Teiid's metadata

CREATE FOREIGN TABLE Customers (
    CustomerID string(5) NOT NULL OPTIONS (FIXED_LENGTH TRUE),
    CompanyName string(40) NOT NULL,
    ContactName string(30),
    ContactTitle string(30),
    Address string(60),
    City string(15),
    Region string(15),
    PostalCode string(10),
    Country string(15),
    Phone string(24),
    Fax string(24),
    PRIMARY KEY(CustomerID)
) OPTIONS (UPDATABLE TRUE, EntityAlias 'Customer', EntityType 'NorthwindModel.Customer');

All "NavigationProperty" elements will be converted into FOREIGN KEYS, based on the "Association" and "AssociationSet" elements defined in the CSDL document.

 * If there is One-to-One relation, the FK are created at both ends of the table.
* If there is One-to-Many relation, at Many end of the table, a FK is created to single end of the table.
* If there are Many-to-Many relation, a virtual mapping table is created with PK's of the both tables.

The mapping table is created so that a VDB user can issue a SQL query that joins these both tables together in their user queries. One limitation is user can not select the columns from this mapping table, it can be strictly used only for the table join purposes. When a user queries their deployed VDB using JDBC/ODBC using SQL, those queries will be automatically converted into OData queries and results will be gathered and presented to user in relation form. For example you can issue a query like

select CustomerID, CompanyName from Customers

CustomerID	CompanyName
ALFKI	Alfreds Futterkiste
ANATR	Ana Trujillo Emparedados y helados
ANTON	Antonio Moreno Taquería
AROUT	Around the Horn

I hope the above gave glimpse of how OData translator works in Teiid. So, take it for test drive and let us know any issues or comments you may have on this subject.

 Ramesh..