To populate the database, I could use a series of SQL statements with DBI but I'd have to lookup ID fields for the resources after creating them.

If you are using sequences to generate your primary keys then you could get a new sequence number first and then do your insert using that number; e.g.,

# ...
my $sth = $dbh->prepare('INSERT INTO foo (pkey, bar, baz) VALUES (?, ?
+, ?)')
                 or die "Error: #DBI::errstr";
# assuming 'bar' and 'baz' are in @data, which is a 2D array
my @ids = (); # you will have all primary keys here
for (@data){
  my $id = getID($dbh, 'foo_sequence');
  redo unless $id;  # or just die() instead
  $sth->execute($id, @$_);
  push @ids, $id;
}
# ...

sub getID{
  my ($dbh, $seqID) = @_;
  # this is for Oracle, you may need to tweak it for MS SQL
  my $sth = $dbh->prepare_cached(qq/SELECT $seqID.NEXTVAL FROM dual/)
                          or return undef;
  $sth->execute() or return undef;
  my @row = $sth->fetchrow_array();
  return @row ? $row[0] : undef;
}
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This approach is faster than getting the primary key after you create a new row.

Hope this helps.

--perlplexer