Although Informatica supports generic ODBC connectivity and allows access to any data source that has a standards-compliant ODBC driver, building a connector by using the

Informatica Connector Toolkit

offers several advantages. Incase where no ODBC driver is available, building a connector by using the Informatica Connector Toolkit might be the only solution.

When you use the

Informatica Connector Toolkit

to create a connector, you can build functionality related to the data source. You can preserve datatype integrity and metadata lineage of the data source when you retain the type system of the data source and perform optimal data type conversions.

The

Informatica Connector Toolkit

consists of libraries, plug-ins, and sample code to assist you in developing connectors for Cloud Data Integration. You can use the Informatica Connector perspective in the Eclipse IDE to quickly develop a connector in an Eclipse environment.

The

Informatica Connector Toolkit

simplifies the following processes:

Development. You can use the wizards in the Informatica Connector perspective to rapidly develop a connector. The wizards simplify the use of internal components and dependencies when you develop a connector.
Testing. After you define the connector components, you can test the connection, metadata, and run-time components of the connector.
Deployment. You can deploy the connector on Cloud Data Integration Service.

The

Informatica Connector Toolkit

API is written in a combination of Java. The connection definition and metadata definition are available in Java. The run-time interfaces are available in Java.