The solution provides in-browser graphical development tools as well as pre-built integration actions, flow templates, components and connectors. These make the integration of the data easy. For more demanding development tasks, the "Talend Studio for Cloud" is also available, which runs locally on the user's computer and communicates directly with the cloud . In the test lab, we looked at how working with the Talend Cloud works.
The test was as follows: After receiving Talend's access to our cloud account, we became familiar with the web interface of the solution. After that, it was about transferring data from one system to another. In the process, we kept an eye on the development and workload as well as the operator guidance during operation. Finally, we used Talend Studio for Cloud to develop our own components, upload them to the cloud, and use them in our flows.
The beginning of the work
After logging in to the Talend Integration Cloud web interface, the user first finds himself on a welcome screen that includes introductory videos with information about the integration environment. Up-to-date news, an activity summary, and a reference to Talend Exchange, the online exchange for users' developed components, complete the Welcome page.Particularly interesting is the second page of the web interface. It is called "flows" and includes all existing data flows in the system. If the users change to a flow entry, the system shows them how often the flow has been processed, whether it is currently active and whether everything went smoothly or whether there were any rejections or failures. In addition, users also have the option to start and stop runs.
The Flow Builder
To process the flows, the so-called Flow Builder is ready. This tool allows users to add data sources and sinks to the flow and integrate features like Mapper or Data Standardizer and Validation. This makes it possible to adapt the data to the format of the target system and to supplement information such as postcodes.
Since the Flow Builder is the web-based development environment of the Integration Cloud, it makes sense to take a closer look at working with the tool at this point. If a user wants to create a new flow, then with the tool he has the opportunity to first give the flow a name.
At the time of testing, we wanted to upload the contents of an Excel spreadsheet to our Salesforce account. So we called the flow " migrationfrom Excel to Salesforce "and gave him a brief description on the occasion. Then we selected our Excel file as a data source under "Choose a Source". Since this was in a Dropbox account, we selected the entry "dopbox_file_download_source" as the source icon and gave our source the path to the file within the Dropbox and the appropriate Dropbox Access token. Then it was time to convert the information from the Excel file so that the system could modify it. For this the entry "xlsx_file_toColumns_process_step" was used. This, as the name suggests, converts the entries in the Excel file into columns. At this point, we were already able to see under "Preview Data" what data was available in the sheet. These columns are the internal format of the Integration Cloud. In this format, the data is held in memory and streamed.In the next step we defined our goal, that is our Salesforce account. For this we used the action "salesforce_contact_upsertBulk_target". This requires not only the account details but also a Salesforce security token, so it works properly. Once the required entries had been made, we could use the mapper to create the schema data we had previously found out about the "Preview Data" entry, ie fields for the company name, the name of the contact person, the address and the like. Finally, we assigned these fields to the associated Salesforce database entries so that the system knew where to write the data.
This completed the definition of the flow and we were able to do a first test run. In the process, the system showed us how many records it had left out of the file and how many records were uploaded. If during the test run it turns out that everything is working properly, the users have the option, via the button "Go Live", to provide the flow with a time scheduler, which automatically starts it at regular intervals and thus ensures that changes in the Source, for example, daily automatically transferred to the destination.
In the test, there were no problems with our first flow and we were able to switch it "live" immediately. We set it up so that it ran daily and that worked from the beginning as expected.
The other functional scope of the web interface
Let us return to the functionality of the web interface. Under "Activity" dashboards are available to the users, which give information about the current and the already accomplished tasks. By contrast, "Manage" contains the actions used by the respective user, ie the sources, destinations, conversion actions and the like. These can also be exported to Talend Exchange and, if necessary, it is also possible to import further action entries from this platform.
The last point of the web interface is called "Admin". It is used to manage the subscription. It includes, for example, user and rights management. There were no problems working with different user accounts during the test.
Talend Studio for Cloud
On the next page, you'll learn about the capabilities of "Talend Studio for Cloud" and how to use the development environment to perform your own data transformations and define data sources or targets. Also a conclusion of the author to the Integration Cloud of Talend.
