Installing database drivers for Information Designer

To be able to access data from a JDBC-compliant data source with Information Services, you must install the appropriate JDBC driver on the computer that is running Spotfire Server.

About this task

Note: If you have a clustered server deployment, you must install the driver on all computers that run Spotfire Server in the cluster.

Procedure

Download the database driver.
Place the driver in the following directory: <installation dir>/tomcat/custom-ext-informationservices.

Note: This is the recommended directory for most JDBC drivers. There might be some JDBC drivers that you must install to a different directory. For information on some known exceptions, see Spotfire JDBC Data Access Connectivity Details on the Community.

Note: If you are using Oracle as the Spotfire database and you want to access data with information services (regardless of whether you want to access Oracle data), you must add the same Oracle jar file in both directories <installation dir>/tomcat/custom-ext and <installation dir>/tomcat/custom-ext-informationservices.
Restart Spotfire Server.

Important: Upgrading to Spotfire version 12.1 and later

In versions 12.1 and later, Information Services runs in its own subprocess, and uses the new default extensions directory <installation dir>/tomcat/custom-ext-informationservices for JDBC drivers. When you upgrade from an earlier version, all your JDBC drivers remain in the previous default directory, <installation dir>/tomcat/custom-ext, and the configuration property information-services.external-process.use-legacy-extensions is set to true. This way, Information Services can also use drivers from the custom-ext folder.

After upgrading, it is recommended that you manually move Information Services-related JDBC drivers to the custom-ext-informationservices directory. After you have moved your drivers, set the configuration property information-services.external-process.use-legacy-extensions to false.

What to do next

To connect to an external data source, you must also add and/or enable a data source template that matches the database and the specific database driver.

You can add and enable data source templates in two different ways:

Note: The database connection URL, used by the server to connect to the database, may differ for different database drivers; see Database drivers and database connection URLs.