Configure Connection to Data Source

Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation

Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation

After you install the Informatica PowerCenter OCF connector, you must configure the connection to the Informatica PowerCenter data source.

The various steps involved in configuring the Informatica PowerCenter data source connection setting are:

Provide Access

Go to the Access tab on the Settings page of your Informatica PowerCenter data source, set the data source visibility using these options:

  • Public Data Source — The data source is visible to all users of the catalog.

  • Private Data Source — The data source is visible to the users allowed access to the data source by Data Source Admins.

You can add new Data Source Admin users in the Data Source Admins section.

Connect to Data Source

To establish the a connection to data source, you must:

Prepare the JDBC URI

Use the following JDBC URI format for the respective databases:

Oracle

Format:

oracle:thin:@<Host_Name>:<Port_Number>/<Service_Name>

Example:

oracle:thin:@54.88.180.121:1521/orcl

SQL Server

Format:

sqlserver://<Host_Name>;databaseName=<Database_Name>;<Properties>

The following properties can be included in the URI as <Properties>:

  • integratedSecurity

  • encrypt

  • applicationName

Examples:

- sqlserver://localhost;encrypt=true;integratedSecurity=true;
- sqlserver://localhost;encrypt=true;databaseName=AdventureWorks;integratedSecurity=true;
- sqlserver://localhost:1433;encrypt=true;databaseName=AdventureWorks;integratedSecurity=true;

Configure Application Settings

Specify Application Settings if applicable. Save the changes after providing the information by clicking Save.

Configure Additional Datasource Connection

Alation can associate objects in a data source with objects in another source in the catalog through cross-syste, lineage. For example, you can show lineage between your data source and BI sources that use its data.

Provide additional connection information for the data source to see lineage across multiple sources on the Lineage chart.

Cross-system lineage is supported for following data sources and targets:

  • SQL Server

  • Oracle

  • PostgreSQL

  • Amazon Redshift (only target)

  • Snowflake (only target)

Follow these steps:

  1. On the Settings page of your Informatica PowerCenter data source, go to the General Settings tab.

  2. In the Application Settings section, provide the following details:

    Field

    Description

    Additional data Source Connection URL

    Provide one or more comma separated values in the format: <host1>:<port1>,<host2>:<port2>

    For example: 10.13.71.216:1541,sever.com:1542

  3. Click Save

Disable Automatic Lineage Generation

You can enable or disable the lineage for the data source to be generated automatically during metadata extraction (MDE).

  1. On the Settings page of your Informatica PowerCenter OCF data source, go to General Settings > Application Settings.

  2. Toggle Disable automatic lineage generation to disable and automatically generate the lineage.

Enable this option when you don’t want lineage to be automatically generated and prefer to create lineage manually or using an API.

By default, automatic lineage generation is enabled.

Configure Datasource Connection

  1. On the Settings page of your Informatica PowerCenter data source, go to the General Settings tab.

  2. In the Connector Settings section, provide the following details in the Datasource Connection section.

    • Provide the JDBC URI for the data source from which you want to extract the metadata. See Prepare the JDBC URI for details.

    • Provide the Username and Password of the data source.

  3. Click Save.

Configure Logging

To set the logging level for your Informatica PowerCenter OCF data source logs, perform these steps:

  1. On the Settings page of your Informatica PowerCenter OCF data source, go to General Settings > Logging configuration.

  2. Select a logging level for the connector logs and Save the settings.

    The available log levels are based on the Log4j framework.

You can view the connector logs in Admin Settings > Server Admin > Manage Connectors > Informatica PowerCenter OCF connector.

Configure Obfuscate Literals

Not applicable.

Test the Connection

The connection test checks database connectivity.

After configuring the datasource connection, test the connection.

To validate the network connectivity, go to General Settings > Test Connection of the Settings page of your Informatica PowerCenter data source and click Test.

A dialog box appears confirming the status of the connection test.