Adding more data sources

You can extend your system to use different sources of data by adding the i2 Connect gateway, and configuring your deployment to identify the data source and searching to use. You can add the i2 Connect gateway to an existing deployment of i2 Analyze.

Before you begin

You must have a deployment of i2 Analyze. When you add the i2 Connect gateway to your deployment, the configuration for an example connector is included. To use the example connector, you must download and install Node.js to host the example connector. Download Node.js for your operating system from: https://nodejs.org/en/download/. You can install Node.js with the default settings.

To use a custom connector that is tailored to your deployment, you either need the details of a connector that is provided to you, or to create a connector. For more information about how to create a custom connector, see Connecting to external data sources.

About this task

The i2 Connect gateway enables analysts to search for and retrieve data from external data sources, and then analyze the results on a chart in Analyst's Notebook. To use the i2 Connect gateway, you must obtain or create a custom connector to the external data source that you want to search. The i2 Analyze toolkit contains an example configuration for the deployment, and i2 publishes a package that contains an example connector to www.npmjs.com.

Procedure

Run the addI2Connect task to add the i2 Connect gateway to your deployment. In a command prompt, navigate to the toolkit\scripts directory and run the following command:
```
setup -t addI2Connect
```
Decide which connector you would like to add to your deployment:
- If you want to use the example connector, complete the step to download and start the example connector in Deploying i2 Analyze with the Information Store and the i2 Connect gateway.
- If you would like to add a custom connector, replace the following elements from the configuration\environment\topology.xml file with elements specific to the connector you want to use:
  - The <connector> element with the ID example-connector
  - The <connector-id> element with the value example-connector
  Note: For more information about making connector-specific changes to the topology file, see Adding a connector to the topology.
Redeploy i2 Analyze.
```
setup -t deploy
```
Start i2 Analyze.
```
setup -t start
```

What to do next

When you start i2 Analyze, the URI that users must specify in Analyst's Notebook is displayed in the console. For example, This application is configured for access on http://<host_name>/opal.

Install Analyst's Notebook and connect to your deployment. For more information, see Installing i2 Analyst's Notebook and Working with i2 Analyze.

Note: The example connector does not use client-authenticated SSL communication with i2 Analyze, so a warning is displayed in Analyst's Notebook. For more information about configuring client-authenticated SSL, see Client authenticated Secure Sockets Layer with the i2 Connect gateway.