TimeXtender Data Integration's first release

A lot of improvements and new features have been added once again. In this blog, I go into some of the most interesting ones. For the full documentation, visit the TimeXtender support page. Tip: you can subscribe to TimeXtender's Product Updates page to stay informed about all new releases.

Data source connections

In the TimeXtender Portal, you can now export the connection profile and connection string from your data source connection (for source types where that makes sense). These can then be imported again. This makes it possible to share templates and roll out generic changes more efficiently. It is also very useful when migrating from TimeXtender Classic (the 20.10.x release) to TimeXtender Data Integration (the 6xxx release). Click here for more details.

Functionality has also been added to convert an existing data source connection to a different provider type. This creates a copy of the original source and flags any settings that can't be mapped directly in the new connector, so you can decide how they should be applied. Click here for more details.

Fabric ETL

TimeXtender has supported Fabric for some time, with Ingest storage in OneLake and Prepare instances via Fabric SQL or Fabric Lakehouse in Simple Mode. For the latter option, you can now apply more of the transformations you're used to in a Prepare instance. This functionality is in Public Preview and supports:

• Transformations
• Conditional Lookup Fields
• Supernatural Keys
• Aggregate Tables

A number of features are not yet directly supported:

• History tables
• Custom Views
• Junk Dimensions
• Add Related Records
• Table Inserts
• Hierarchy Tables

For incremental loads from Ingest, you still have to set up an Incremental Selection Rule manually; automatic incremental loads aren't available yet.
What is possible is adding PySpark scripts to run via Customize Code. This means you can integrate existing notebook code, as well as add complex custom scripts. Click here for more details.

So if you want to move to a Fabric-driven platform, or want parts of your solution to land in Fabric, there are options available!

TimeXtender REST

TimeXtender's REST connector gets a huge improvement with this release: you can import APIs that have a Swagger or OpenAPI specification, so you spend much less time setting up your connection. More complex authentication can now be implemented directly, and you can manipulate internal data via SQLite. This saves you from having to set up a connection to a SQL database to support more complex loops. On top of that, the connector now also supports CSV and plain text data.
If you need to tap into a stubborn API, you can now also generate debug logging that gives more insight into the traffic.

With this release, the CData REST connector is being phased out: if you already had CData REST sources you can of course keep using them, but this connector type will disappear for new setups. We recommend switching to the TimeXtender REST connector. If your API has a Swagger specification, this takes little effort and avoids having to work with .rsd files.

Promotions

When you promote an instance (Migration in TimeXtender terms), you can now save the promotion settings so you don't have to set everything up again for every promotion. The next time you run the same promotion, TimeXtender remembers the settings.

TimeXtender Classic release

TimeXtender Classic recently received a bugfix release: 20.10.57. It fixes an issue with CData PostgreSQL incremental loads and an issue with auto-mapping in Custom Views.

TimeXtender updates and upgrades

If you're still running an older TimeXtender version, there's no better time than today to update! Versions before 20.10.44 don't support SQL Server 2022, and Microsoft SQL Server 2019 mainstream support ends on 28 February 2025 (extended support until 8 January 2030).

To migrate to TimeXtender Data Integration, you'll want to update TimeXtender to the latest release to make the migration as smooth as possible.

If you have questions about TimeXtender updates, or about your options for migrating to TimeXtender Data Integration, we can help. Get in touch with us to discuss the possibilities.