Connect to Anaplan Data as an External Source in Dremio

The CData JDBC Driver for Anaplan implements JDBC Standards and allows various applications, including Dremio, to work with live Anaplan data. Dremio is a data lakehouse platform designed to empower self-service, interactive analytics on the data lake. With the CData JDBC driver, you can include live Anaplan data as a part of your enterprise data lake. This article describes how to connect to Anaplan data from Dremio as an External Source.

The CData JDBC Driver enables high-speed access to live Anaplan data in Dremio. Once you install the driver, authenticate with Anaplan and gain immediate access to Anaplan data within your data lake. By surfacing Anaplan data using native data types and handling complex filters, aggregations, & other operations automatically, the CData JDBC Driver grants seamless access to Anaplan data.

Prerequisites

This article assumes you are utilizing Docker to run Dremio. You can create a Docker container with the Dremio service using a command similar to the follow:

docker run -d --name dremio -p 9047:9047 -p 31010:31010 dremio/dremio-oss

Where dremio is the name of the container, 9047 is the container's port for the Dremio web interface and 31010 is the port that maps to the Dremio query service. dremio/dremio-oss specifies the image to use.

Build the ARP Connector

To use the CData JDBC Driver in Dremio, you need to build an Advanced Relation Pushdown (ARP) Connector. You can view the source code for the Connector on GitHub or download the ZIP file (GitHub.com) directly. Once you copy or extract the files, run the following command from the root directory of the connector (the directory containing the pom.xml file) to build the connector.

mvn clean install

NOTE: The CData ARP Connectors are build to be compiled with Java 11. Be sure to install Java 11 and use the correct version. You can update your Java version using a command similar to the following:

sudo update-alternatives --config java

Once the JAR file for the connector is built (in the target directory), you are ready to copy the ARP connector and JDBC Driver to your Dremio instance.

Installing the Connector and JDBC Driver

Install the ARP Connector to %DREMIO_HOME%/jars/ and the JDBC Driver for Anaplan to %DREMIO_HOME%/jars/3rdparty. You can use commands similar to the following:

ARP Connector

docker cp PATH\TO\dremio-anaplan-plugin-{DREMIO_VERSION}.jar dremio_image_name:/opt/dremio/jars/

JDBC Driver for Anaplan

docker cp PATH\TO\cdata.jdbc.anaplan.jar dremio_image_name:/opt/dremio/jars/3rdparty/

Connecting to Anaplan

Anaplan will now appear as an External Source option in Dremio. The ARP Connector built uses a JDBC URL to connect to Anaplan data. The JDBC Driver has a built-in connection string designer that you can use (see below).

👁 External Sources via CData JDBC Drivers (Amazon DynamoDB & Couchbase are shown)

Built-in Connection String Designer

For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Anaplan JDBC Driver. Double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command line.

java -jar cdata.jdbc.anaplan.jar

Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

Authenticating to Anaplan

The driver supports authenticating with Basic, Certificate, or OAuth. In every case, set Region to the region where your Anaplan account data is hosted (e.g., , which is the default).

Using Basic Authentication

Set AuthScheme to , then supply your Anaplan User and Password. If your workspace uses single sign-on (SSO), you must be assigned as an Exception User to use Basic authentication.

Using Certificate Authentication

Set AuthScheme to , then supply the Certificate, CertificateType, and PrivateKey properties (and the matching CertificatePassword / PrivateKeyPassword if either is encrypted). The certificate must be a CA-issued X.509 certificate registered with your Anaplan tenant administrator.

Using OAuth Authentication

Register a custom OAuth application in Anaplan, then set the following properties:

• OAuthClientId: The client Id assigned when you registered your custom OAuth application.
• OAuthClientSecret: The client secret assigned when you registered your custom OAuth application.
• CallbackURL: The redirect URI defined when you registered your application.
• InitiateOAuth: Set to to have the driver manage the OAuth token exchange and refresh automatically.

See the Getting Started chapter of the help documentation for a guide to creating a custom OAuth app and using OAuth.

👁 Using the built-in connection string designer to generate a JDBC URL (Salesforce is shown.)

NOTE: To use the JDBC Driver in Dremio, you will need a license (full or trial) and a Runtime Key (RTK). For more information on obtaining this license (or a trial), contact our sales team.

Add the Runtime Key (RTK) to the JDBC URL. You will end up with a JDBC URL similar to the following:

jdbc:anaplan:RTK=5246...;OAuthClientId=your_client_id;OAuthClientSecret=your_client_secret;CallbackURL=your_callback_url;Region=US1;InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH;

Access Anaplan as an External Source

To add Anaplan as an External Source, click to add a new source and select Anaplan. Copy the JDBC URL and paste it into the New Anaplan Source wizard.

👁 Entering the JDBC URL (Amazon DynamoDB is shown)

Save the connection and you are ready to query live Anaplan data in Dremio, easily incorporating Anaplan data into your data lake.

👁 Live data in Dremio (Amazon DynamoDB is shown)

More Information & Free Trial

Using the CData JDBC Driver for Anaplan in Dremio, you can incorporate live Anaplan data into your data lake. Check out our CData JDBC Driver for Anaplan page for more information about connecting to Anaplan. Download a free, 30 day trial of the CData JDBC Driver for Anaplan and get started today.