I recently wrote a four-part series on how I started to learn about and begin my journey with NuoDB. Big Data is indeed a big world and the learning of the Big Data is like spaghetti – no one knows in reality where to start, so I decided to learn it with the help of NuoDB. You can download NuoDB and continue your journey with me as well.

• Part 1 – Install NuoDB in 90 Seconds
• Part 2 – Manage NuoDB Installation
• Part 3 – Explore NuoDB Database
• Part 4 – Migrate from SQL Server to NuoDB

…and in this blog post we will try to answer the most asked question about NuoDB.

“I like the NuoDB Explorer but can I connect to NuoDB from my preferred Graphical User Interface?”
Honestly, I did not expect this question to be asked of me so many times but from the question it is clear that we developers absolutely want to learn new things and along with that we do want to continue to use our most efficient developer tools. Now here is the answer to the question:

“Absolutely, you can continue to use any of the following most popular SQL clients.”
NuoDB supports the three most popular 3rd-party SQL clients. In all the leading development environments there are always more than one database installed and managing each of them with a different tool is often a very difficult task. Developers like to use one tool, which can control most of the databases. Once developers are familiar with one database tool it is very difficult for them to switch to another tool. This is particularly difficult when we developers find that tool to be the key reason for our efficiency.

Let us see how to install each of the NuoDB supported 3^rd party tools along with a quick tutorial on how to go about using them.

SQuirreL SQL Client

First download SQuirreL Universal SQL client. On the Windows platform you can double-click on the file and it will install the SQuirrel client. Once it is installed, open the application and it will bring up the following screen. Now go to the Drivers tab on the left side and scroll it down. You will find NuoDB mentioned there.

Now right click over it and click on Modify Driver.

Now here is where you need to make sure that you make proper entries or your client will not work with the database. Enter following values:
Name: NuoDB
Example URL: jdbc:com:nuodb://localhost:48004/test
Website URL: http://www.nuodb.com

Now click on the Extra Class Path tab and Add the location of the nuodbjdbc.jar file. If you are following my blog posts and have installed NuoDB in the default location, you will find the default path as C:\Program Files\NuoDB\jar\nuodbjdbc.jar.

The class name of the driver is automatically populated.

Once you click OK you will see that there is a small icon displayed to the left of NuoDB, which shows that you have successfully configured and installed the NuoDB driver.

Now click on the tab of Alias tab and you can notice that it is empty. Now click on the big Plus icon and it will open screen of adding an alias.

“Alias” means nothing more than adding a database to your system. The database name of the original installation can be anything and, if you wish, you can register the database with any other alternative name.

Here are the details you should fill into the Alias screen below.

Name: Test (or your preferred alias)
Driver: NuoDB
URL: jdbc:com:nuodb://localhost:48004/test (This is for test database)
User Name: dba (This is the username which I entered for test Database)
Password: goalie (This is the password which I entered for test Database)
Check Auto Logon and Connect at Startup and click on OK.

That’s it! You are done. On the right side you will see a table name and on the left side you will see various tabs with all the relevant details from respective table. You can see various metadata, schemas, data types and other information in the table.

In addition, you can also generate script and do various important tasks related to database.

You can see how easy it is to configure NuoDB with the SQuirreL Client and get going with it immediately.

SQL Workbench/J

This is another wonderful client tool, which works very well with NuoDB. The best part is that in the Driver dropdown you will see NuoDB being mentioned there. Click here to download  SQL Workbench/J Universal SQL client.

The download process is straight forward and the installation is a very easy process for SQL Workbench/J. As soon as you open the client, you will notice on following screen the NuoDB driver when selecting a New Connection Profile.

Select NuoDB from the drop down and click on OK.

In the driver information, enter following details:
Driver: NuoDB (com.nuodb.jdbc.Driver)
URL: jdbc:com.nuodb://localhost/test
Username: dba
Password: goalie

While clicking on OK, it will bring up the following pop-up. Click Yes to edit the driver information.

Click on OK and it will bring you to following screen. This is the screen where you can perform various tasks.

You can write any SQL query you want and it will instantly show you the results. Now click on the database icon, which you see right on the left side of the word User=dba. 

Once you click on Database Explorer, you can perform various database related tasks.

As a developer, one of my favorite tasks is to look at the source of the table as it gives me a proper view of the structure of the database. I find SQL Workbench/J very efficient in doing the same.

DbVisualizer

DBVisualizer is another great tool, which helps you to connect to NuoDB and retrieve database information in your desired format. A developer who is familiar with DBVisualizer will find this client to be very easy to work with.

The installation of the DBVisualizer is very pretty straight forward. When we open the client, it will bring us to the following screen.

As a first step we need to set up the driver. Go to Tools >> Driver Manager.

It will bring up following screen where we set up the diver. Click on Create Driver and it will open up the driver settings on the right side.

On the right side of the area where it displays Driver Settings please enter the following values-
Name: NuoDB
URL Format: jdbc:com.nuodb://localhost:48004/test

Now under the driver path, click on the folder icon and it will ask for the location of the jar file. Provide the path as a C:\Program Files\NuoDB\jar\nuodbjdbc.jar and click OK. You will notice there is a green button displayed at the bottom right corner. This means the driver is configured properly.

Once driver is configured properly, we can go to Create Database Connection and create a database.

If the pop up show up for the Wizard. Click on No Wizard and continue to enter the settings manually.

Here is the Database Connection screen. This screen can be bit tricky. Here are the settings you need to remember to enter.
Name: NuoDB
Database Type: Generic
Driver: NuoDB
Database URL: jdbc:com.nuodb://localhost:48004/test
Database Userid: dba
Database Password: goalie
Once you enter the values, click on Connect.

Once Connect is pressed, it will change the button value to Reconnect if the connection is successfully established and it will show the connection details on lthe eft side.

When we further explore the NuoDB, we can see various tables created in our test application. We can further click on the right side screen and see various details on the table.

If you click on the Data Tab, it will display the entire data of the table.

The Tools menu also has some very interesting and cool features like Driver Manager, Data Monitor and SQL History.

Summary

Well, this was a relatively long post but I find it is extremely essential to cover all the three important clients, which we developers use in our daily database development. Here is my question to you?
Which one of the following is your favorite NuoDB 3^rd-Party Database Client? (Pick One)

• SQuirreL SQL Client
• SQL Workbench/J
• DbVisualizer

I will be very much eager to read your experience about NuoDB. You can download NuoDB from here.

Reference: Pinal Dave (http://blog.SQLAuthority.com)