REST and SOAP Web Services
CData Virtuality supports a range of REST and SOAP web services—standardized protocols that allow applications to communicate and exchange data over the web. This support enables integration with diverse APIs, making it easier to access real-time data from external platforms and services. It features schema modeling and introspection, dynamic URL/path parameter support, and OAuth 2.0, Basic Auth, and API key-based security.
CData Virtuality supports APIs such as Salesforce and HubSpot through prebuilt JDBC drivers. However, for custom APIs or less common services, you need REST or SOAP connectors. These connectors let you manually define API endpoints, HTTP methods, request headers, URL parameters, and authentication details.
Metadata Discovery
For REST APIs, CData Virtuality reads OpenAPI or Swagger specs and loads endpoint paths, methods, parameters, and JSON response schemas. For SOAP APIs, CData Virtuality extracts services, operations, and input/output messages. Each endpoint in the API is becomes a virtual table in the catalog. CData Virtuality flattens the nested objects in the JSON response schema, so that firstname nested under user becomes user.firstname.
SQL Query Translation
CData Virtuality supports complex SQL filtering, joins, and functions. When CData Virtuality runs a SQL query against a REST or SOAP virtual table, it translates SQL clauses into HTTP methods, URL parameters, and request bodies that the API can handle. You can then join a virtual table query with a traditional SQL query, such as PostgreSQL, in memory. The results are returned as a single SQL result set.
Supported Protocols
Supported protocols are: