Connect to Amazon Athena Data as a SQL Server Linked Server

SQL Server Linked Servers enable the SQL Server Database Engine to read data from remote data sources and execute commands against the remote database servers outside of the instance of SQL Server. Typically, linked servers are configured to enable the execution of a T-SQL statement that includes tables in another instance of SQL Server, or another database product such as Oracle. When paired with CData Connect AI, linked servers provides instant access to Amazon Athena data from your SQL Server database. This article demonstrates how to connect to Amazon Athena using Connect AI and query Amazon Athena data in SQL Server Management Studio (SSMS).

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for Amazon Athena, allowing you to query data from Amazon Athena without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Amazon Athena, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Amazon Athena data quickly.

Getting Started

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Configure Amazon Athena Connectivity for SQL Server

Connectivity to Amazon Athena from SQL Linked Servers is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Amazon Athena data from SQL Linked Servers, we start by creating and configuring a Amazon Athena connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
👁 Adding a Connection

2. Select "Amazon Athena" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Amazon Athena.

   Authenticating to Amazon Athena

   To authorize Amazon Athena requests, provide the credentials for an administrator account or for an IAM user with custom permissions: Set to the access key Id. Set to the secret access key.

   Note: Though you can connect as the AWS account administrator, it is recommended to use IAM user credentials to access AWS services.

   Obtaining the Access Key

   To obtain the credentials for an IAM user, follow the steps below:

   1. Sign into the IAM console.
   2. In the navigation pane, select Users.
   3. To create or manage the access keys for a user, select the user and then select the Security Credentials tab.

   To obtain the credentials for your AWS root account, follow the steps below:

   1. Sign into the AWS Management console with the credentials for your root account.
   2. Select your account name or number and select My Security Credentials in the menu that is displayed.
   3. Click Continue to Security Credentials and expand the Access Keys section to manage or create root account access keys.

   Authenticating from an EC2 Instance

   If you are using the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 from an EC2 Instance and have an IAM Role assigned to the instance, you can use the IAM Role to authenticate. To do so, set to true and leave and empty. The CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 will automatically obtain your IAM Role credentials and authenticate with them.

   Authenticating as an AWS Role

   In many situations it may be preferable to use an IAM role for authentication instead of the direct security credentials of an AWS root user. An AWS role may be used instead by specifying the . This will cause the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 to attempt to retrieve credentials for the specified role. If you are connecting to AWS (instead of already being connected such as on an EC2 instance), you must additionally specify the and of an IAM user to assume the role for. Roles may not be used when specifying the and of an AWS root user.

   Authenticating with MFA

   For users and roles that require Multi-factor Authentication, specify the and connection properties. This will cause the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 to submit the MFA credentials in a request to retrieve temporary authentication credentials. Note that the duration of the temporary credentials may be controlled via the (default 3600 seconds).

   Connecting to Amazon Athena

   In addition to the and properties, specify , and . Set to the region where your Amazon Athena data is hosted. Set to a folder in S3 where you would like to store the results of queries.

   If is not set in the connection, the data provider connects to the default database set in Amazon Athena.

   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Amazon Athena Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions
   

Add a Personal Access Token

When connecting to Connect AI through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open the settings page.
2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give the PAT a name and click Create. 👁 Creating a new PAT
   
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to Amazon Athena data from .

Connect to Amazon Athena from SQL Server using Connect AI

To establish a connection from SQL Server Linked Server to the CData Connect AI Virtual SQL Server API, follow these steps.

1. Open Microsoft SQL Server Management Studio.
2. In the Object Explorer pane, open Server Objects, right-click Linked Servers, and select New Linked Server.
👁 Selecting new linked server

3. The New Linked Server dialogue opens. On the General page, enter the following information:
   • Enter a name for the server in the Linked server field.
   • Select the radio button Other data source and select SQL Server Native Client 11.0 as the provider.
   • In the Data source field, enter tds.cdata.com,14333
   • In the Catalog field, enter enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect AI data source you want to connect to (for example, AmazonAthena1).
   👁 Configuring the new linked server
   
4. Select the Security page. At the bottom, select the radio button labeled Be made using this security context and enter the following information:
   • Remote login - enter your CData Connect AI username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect AI interface. For example, [email protected].
   • With password - enter the PAT you generated on the Settings page.
   👁 Entering credentials
   
5. Click OK to create the server.
Your linked server can now be used to access the data in the data source you specified. If you need to access data from more sources, create another linked server for each one.

Execute Queries

You can now execute queries to the Amazon Athena linked server from any tool that can connect to SQL Server. An example SQL query would be:

		SELECT * FROM [CDATA CONNECT CLOUD].[AmazonAthena1].[AmazonAthena].[Customers]
	

👁 Querying live data in SQL Server Management Studio (Excel Online is shown)
We have successfully created a linked server that allows us to query Amazon Athena data.

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