Managing Connections

A connection specifies the authentication settings Data Hub uses to access an external source system, such as SAP S/4HANA, Microsoft Dynamics 365, or an SQL database accessed through JDBC.

You can manage connections on the Integrations page, which you open from the Data Hub in the main menu. The page lists every connection together with its source datasets: each connection is a parent row that you can expand to display the source datasets that use it.

The Integrations page is displayed as follows, for example:

'Integrations' page with connections expanded to display their source datasets — Connections and their source datasets on the 'Integrations' page

The overview table on the Integrations page provides the following information for each connection:

Column	Description
Connection name, Number of associated data sources	Name of the connection and the number of source datasets that use it
Source system	External system the connection is established to, for example SAP S/4HANA, Microsoft Dynamics 365, or an SQL database
Status	Status indicating whether the connection is active or inactive
Created by	User who created the connection
Import	Status of the most recent import of the connection's source datasets

To create a connection:

In the main menu, select Data Hub. The Integrations page is displayed.

In the top-right corner, click Create new connection. The connection form is displayed as follows, for example:

The connection form with the connection name field and the open 'Source system' drop-down list — Connection form with the source-system selection

Select the source system you want to connect to: SAP S/4HANA, Microsoft Dynamics 365, Microsoft SQL Server (JDBC), Oracle Database (JDBC), or PostgreSQL (JDBC).

For the selected source system, the Version of its connection template is displayed in the top-right corner of the Source system area.

Enter the connection settings for the selected source system. For more information, see Connection Settings below.

Click Create. The connection is created and displayed on the Integrations page.

The connection settings depend on the source system you want to extract the data from.

The following options are the same for every source system:

Option	Description
Connection name	Name that identifies the connection on the Integrations page. Required.
SEA instance	Instance of the Lucanet.Script Execution Application (SEA) that runs the connection. Required.
Description	Optional description of the connection

All other settings are provided by the connection template of the selected source system and are grouped by purpose. The values for these settings come from the source system.

The connection settings are displayed as follows, for example:

'General' Area

The following option is available in the General area:

Option	Description
Language	Login language for the SAP system

'Authentication' Area

The following options are available in the Authentication area:

Option	Description
Host	Host name or IP address of the SAP server
Instance number	Two-digit instance number of the SAP application server, for example 00
Client	Three-digit number of the SAP client that the login refers to, for example 100
User	User name for the login to the SAP system
Password	Password of that user

'Authentication' Area

The following options are available in the Authentication area:

Option	Description
Endpoint	URL of the Microsoft Dynamics 365 service the data is read from
Client ID	ID of the application that Data Hub signs in with
Client Secret	Secret of that application
Tenant ID	ID of the tenant of your Microsoft Dynamics 365 environment
Resource	Resource the access is requested for
X-API-Key	API key that the endpoint requires

'Network' Area

The following options are available in the Network area:

Option	Description
Connection timeout	Time after which establishing the connection is aborted
Read timeout	Time after which reading the data is aborted

The SQL databases Microsoft SQL Server (JDBC), Oracle Database (JDBC), and PostgreSQL (JDBC) are connected through JDBC. The same settings are available for all three source systems.

'Connection' Area

The following option is available in the Connection area:

Option	Description
URL	JDBC connection URL of the database, including the host, the port, and the name of the database

The format of the URL depends on the database, for example:

Microsoft SQL Server:

jdbc:sqlserver://hostname:1433;databaseName=myDatabase

Oracle Database:

jdbc:oracle:thin:@//hostname:1521/servicename

PostgreSQL:

jdbc:postgresql://hostname:5432/mydatabase

'Authentication' Area

The following options are available in the Authentication area:

Option	Description
User	User name for the login to the database
Password	Password of that user

You can manage an existing connection from the icon in the row of the connection on the Integrations page. The following options are available:

Option	Description
Edit	Option to view and change the connection's settings
Create new dataset	Option to define a source dataset for the connection. For more information, see Managing Source Datasets.
Deactivate / Activate	Option to set the connection to Inactive or back to Active. While a connection is inactive, it cannot be used for imports, and all its source datasets are inactive as well.
Delete	Option to delete the connection. You can only delete a connection which is not used by any source dataset.

When you deactivate a connection that still has active source datasets, you must confirm the change, and the connection together with all its source datasets is set to Inactive. Activating a connection again does not automatically reactivate its source datasets. You cannot deactivate a connection or source dataset while one of its imports is running or queued.