Connecting to external data sources

Subject to your licensing terms, a deployment of i2 Analyze can use the i2 Connect gateway to query and retrieve data from external data sources. By connecting to an external data source, you enable i2 Analyze to create and display records that represent the data in that source.

If the deployment and their permissions support it, users who create records from external sources can upload them to the Information Store for storage, sharing, and subsequent analysis.

Solutions that use the i2 Connect gateway depend on connectors that make the bridge between i2 Analyze and external data sources. Conventionally, you have one connector for each source that you connect to. Each connector provides one or more services that present a querying interface to users and perform the actual queries on the data source.

i2 provides three ways to create connectors between the i2 Connect gateway and external data sources - one for analysts, and two for developers:

  • i2 Connector Designer is a graphical tool that analysts can use to create connectors and services that run simple queries against REST APIs or SQL databases. It's available to Analysis Studio and Analysis Hub customers. For information about deploying Connector Designer, see Adding Connector Designer to your deployment.

  • The i2 Connect gateway defines a REST SPI that developers can implement. When the gateway calls SPI methods in response to user requests, an implementation can retrieve data from an external source and return it to the gateway. For information about this approach, and example connectors written in Java and Python, see the open-source project at https://i2group.github.io/analyze-connect.

  • The open-source i2 Connect SDK enables projects that include a connector server, which simplifies the connector development process by replacing the REST SPI and many configuration settings with a JavaScript/TypeScript API. In most situations, developers should use the i2 Connect SDK.