1 Designing data extraction
For each measure, you need to define details about the source data that will be used to produce the metric. Typically,
you should includes these details:
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Product source of the data
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List of resources that need to be extracted
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Detailed attributes and relationships for each resource that needs to be extracted
See the Rational Insight Deployment Gap Analysis template for more details.
2 Implementing data extraction
IBM® Rational® Insight supports extracting data from Rational Insight data services or a generic REST service or XML
file, as well as other standard interfaces that are supported by IBM® Cognos® Data Manager, such as a relational databases,
a Microsoft® Excel® spreadsheet, or a text file.
2.1 Extracting data from data services or XML files
For the data sources that can be accessed through Rational Insight data services, or generic REST service or XML file,
Rational Insight provides an XML ODBC driver to access the source data. You need to use the XML Data Configuration
provided by Rational Insight to define where to extract the data (connection information of the data source) and what
to collect (the resources and their attributes and relationships). This configuration information can be stored in a
file system with an .xdc file extension.
Then you need to define an ODBC data source of the Rational Insight XML ODBC driver, and point to the .xdc file so that
the driver can use the configuration information in it to extract data.
There are a few key concepts in the XML Data Configuration: the resource group represents a product data source that
provides the base URL and authentication information for the data source. The resource represents an XML entity in the
data source. The key information that you need to provide for a resource is relative URL for the data and a relative
URL for a schema associated with this resource, if there is one.
The Data Mapping table defines details about the attributes and relationships that you need to extract from the
resource.
For more details about XML Data
Configuration, see the XML Data Configuration section of the Administering Rational Insight
topic in the Rational Insight information center.
2.2 Extracting data from other data sources
For a product that does not provide a data service or XML, if the data can be accessed through a standard interface
(for example, a relational database), or you can export the data as a Microsoft® Excel® spreadsheet or text file, you can
still extract data with the IBM® Cognos® Data Manager.
For more information
For more details about XML Data
Configuration, see the XML Data Configuration section of the Administering Rational
Insight topic in the Rational Insight information center.
For more details about how to transform and
load data into the data warehouse, see the ETL section of the Administering Rational Insight
topic, and Module 1 of the Customizing the extract, transform, and load (ETL) process tutorial in
the Rational Insight information center.
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