Connect to API Data in Airbyte ELT Pipelines

Airbyte empowers users to load your data into any data warehouse, data lake, or database. When combined with CData Connect Cloud, Airbyte users can create Extract, Load, Transform (ELT) pipelines directly from live API data. This article illustrates the process of connecting to your API through Connect Cloud and constructing ELT pipelines for API data within Airbyte.

CData Connect Cloud offers a dedicated SQL Server interface for your API, facilitating data querying without the need for data replication to a native database. With built-in optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect Cloud efficiently directs all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, straight to your API. This harnesses server-side processing to swiftly retrieve the desired API data.

Configure your API Connectivity for Airbyte

Connectivity to your API from Airbyte is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with API data from Airbyte, we start by creating and configuring a your API connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "API" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to your API.

   To connect to your API, configure the following properties on the Global Settings page:

   • In Authentication, select the Type and fill in the required properties
   • In Headers, add the required HTTP headers for your API
   • In Pagination, select the Type and fill in the required properties

   After the configuring the global settings, navigate to the Tables to add tables. For each table you wish to add:

   1. Click "+ Add"
   2. Set the Name for the table
   3. Set Request URL to the API endpoint you wish to work with
   4. (Optional) In Parameters, add the required URL Parameters for your API endpoint
   5. (Optional) In Headers, add the required HTTP headers for the API endpoint
   6. In Table Data click " Configure"
   7. Review the response from the API and click "Next"
   8. Select which element to use as the Repeated Elements and which elements to use as Columns and click "Next"
   9. Preview the tabular model of the API response and click "Confirm"
4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add your API Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect Cloud through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect Cloud. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect Cloud app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to API data from Airbyte.

Connect to your API from Airbyte

To establish a connection from Airbyte to CData Connect Cloud, follow these steps.

1. Log in to your Airbyte account
2. On the left panel, click Sources, then Add New Source
   • Set Source Type to MSSQL Server to connect the TDS endpoint
   • Set Source Name
   • Set Host URL to tds.cdata.com
   • Set Port to 14333
   • Set Database to the name of the connection you previously configured, e.g. API1.
   • Set Username to your Connect Cloud username
   • Set SSL Method to Encrypted (trust server certificate), leave the Replication Method as standard, and set SSH Tunnel Method to No Tunnel
   • (Optional) Set Schema to anything you want to apply to the source
   • Set Password to your Connect Cloud PAT
   • (Optional) Enter any needed JBDC URL Params
3. Click Test and Save to create the data source.

Create ELT Pipelines for API Data

To connect API data with a new destination, click Connections and then Set Up Connection to connect to your destination. Select the source created above and your desired destination, then allow Airbyte to process. When it is done, your connection is ready for use.

Get CData Connect Cloud

To get live data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from Airbyte, try CData Connect Cloud today!