DataDirect Access your favorite SaaS app with SQL

Database driver company   are writing the next generation of data access. They are working on a platform called Datadirect which will enable you to access loads of data sources in the cloud, from the cloud, and some of them with SQL. 

Yes you have read correct, SQL!

All you have to do is visit their website and sign up for a trial account and access your favorite SaaS app - i.e Salesforce  or any other provided Cloud app with SQL.

Here is how their availability of connectors looks like

 









To sign up just follow this link.

I very much like this noble idea. SQL is the universal language for data manipulation and access. And things like Big Data, Hadoop in the horizon they are pro-active and seems like they are already working on it.

See some list of data sources they can/will SQL:

• Twitter
• Facebook
• Hive
• Eloqua
• force.com
• Salesforce
• SQLAzure
• Microsoft Dynamics CRM
• and many more...

This is on my hot list of technology to watch. Well done DataDirect. 

Salesforce.com Real Time integration with Oracle using Informatica PowerCenter 9.5

In this post I will describe how you can integrate your Salesforce.com org with a relational database, like Oracle in real time, or better 'near' real time!

Many times I come across the requirement of quickly propagating changes from cloud platforms like Salesforce.com to on-premise data stores. You can do this with webservices, but that is not middleware and it requires coding.

How about doing with a data integration tool?

+Informatica Corporation's  Informatica PowerCenter can achieve this by using the CDC (Change Data Capture) feature of the Informatica PowerCenter Salesforce connector, when Salesforce is the source in a mapping.

The configuration is simple. All you really have to set up is 2 properties in the Mapping Tab of a Session Task in Informatica Workflow Manager.

These are the properties:

• Time Limit property to -1
• Flush interval property to 60 seconds (minimum 60 seconds)

See a picture from one of my settings

And here is what these two settings mean from the PowerCenter PowerExchange for Salesforce.com User Guide:

CDC Time Limit

Time period (in seconds) that the Integration Service reads changed Salesforce data. When you set the CDC Time Limit to a non-zero value, the Integration Service performs a full initial read of the source data and then captures changes to the Salesforce data for the time period you specify. Set the value to -1 to capture changed data for an infinite period of time. Default is 0. 

Flush Interval

Interval (in seconds) at which the Integration Service captures changed Salesforce data. Default is 300. If you set the CDC Time Limit to a non-zero value, the Integration Service captures changed data from the source every 300 seconds. Otherwise, the Integration Service ignores this value.

That's it, you don't have to configure anything else!

Once you set up these properties in the mapping tab of a session, save and restart the task in the workflow, the task will run continuously, non stop. The connector will poll the Salesforce org continuously and propagate any changes you do in Salesforce, downstream to the premise database system, including INSERT, UPDATE and DELETE operations.

Enjoy!

More reading:

SFDC CDC implementation in Informatica PowerCenter