n2edra_etl Configuration

The N2C5 EDR Analytics module processes EDRs from a OCNCC SMS system through an "extract, transform and load" process called n2edra_etl. This process lives at /usr/share/n2edra/bin/ and is configured using the configuration file /etc/n2edra/n2edra.xml.

The n2edra_etl process is designed to start on system startup and continue executing. Startup and shutdown of this process can be performed through the Debian upstart commands start and stop:

sudo stop n2edra
sudo start n2edra

The upstart script controlling this is installed at /etc/init/n2edra.

The n2edra.xml Configuration File

On initial installation the file /etc/n2edra/n2edra.xml is created with a completely documented configuration file. This file must be edited before the process will perform any useful function. The following key configuration changes must be made.

Databases

The databases section of the configuration file defines where EDRs are read from and where extracted data is stored. This is the only part of the configuration that must be changed. The database configuration is defined as:

<databases>
    <database name="ocncc" connect="dbi:Oracle:host=10.42.2.154;sid=SMF" 
        username="SMF" password="smf"/>
    <database name="edra" connect="dbi:Pg:dbname=n2edra;host=localhost" 
        username="n2edra_owner" password="n2edra_owner"/>
</databases>

Two database connections are defined. The first is named ocncc and references the OCNCC SMF database to retrieve EDRs from. The second is named edra and is the EDR Analytics database to store extracted information into.

Configuration of each database requires a connection string, username and password:

Parameter	Description
connect	The connect parameter defines how to connect to the database. It is a Perl DBI connection string (similar to a JDBC connection string). The key element of the string is the host sub-element, which must point to the appropriate machine for connection.
username	The database user to connect to the database as. It is unlikely that you will need to alter this.
password	The password for the database user. Alter this as required.