Add a database of type Netezza in vRO

[rdaka]

We have a need to connect to Netezza database from vRO and SQL plugin is supporting only MS SQL, Oracle, PostgreSQL and mySQL.

Is there a way to add Netezza database. If so, please provide the details.

Versions: vRO 7.5 and 7.3

[qc4vmware]

I know nothing about Netezza but you could try the options presented in the sql plugin and see if you get connectivity?  I don't know if Netezza has an api but if it does maybe you can leverage the SOAP or REST plugin?  Lastly if there is a CLI you might be able to wrap that in some workflows to achieve whatever it is you are trying to automate.

[eoinbyrne]

vRO SQL plugin uses the JDBC drivers for the different DBMS (Oracle, SQL, etc). The drivers are shipped on the appliance so this is why the plugin only lists certain supported Databases. In theory you could add the Netezza JDBC driver manually and see if the plugin will accept it

See here - for the (quite old) explainer page - Integrating vCO: Access a Database (Overview)

There's a PDF guide linked there which runs through how to add JDBC drivers but it's EXPERIMENTAL (meaning not supported..)

- https://www.vmware.com/content/dam/digitalmarketing/vmware/en/pdf/techpaper/vco-experimental-dbs-ope...

Netezza JDBC seems to have a lot of limitations

IBM Knowledge Center - Unsupported JDBC methods

In practice I think I agree with qc4vmware​ here - You might be best off to look for another approach. As a suggestion, you would be able to use a Linux VM in the middle as the SQL client and use the SSH plugin to login and execute scripts/commands/Java programs to query the Netezza DB using vRO.

I've used the SSH plugin in the past for stuff like this (not specifically Netezza) but you can get a complete transcript of any command output from the SSH plugin so your results would be fully readable. Note that this might be messy if you need to run queries which return LARGE datasets but given that Netezza is an analytics DB you might not have that problem

Anyway, my 2c and HTH

[rdaka]

Initially I wanted to try the jdbc approach but I realized that it is not the best solution and may void license as well.

As suggested by you and qc4vmware​ I will try the SSH option with a linux VM in between vRO and Netezza DB. Thank you for reply and valuable suggestions.

[qc4vmware]

I've found having both linux and windows hosts which are dedicated helpers in our orchestration environment invaluable.  Over the years we've had to write a LOT of automations that wrap command line tools or we need to interact with applications configured with specific service accounts or what seems like a million other things that can only be accomplished with an intermediary host.  Good luck.  I don't think I've hit anything yet I couldn't somehow get automated with Orchestrator.