How to integrate Metabase with Amazon Athena Data

Metabase is an open source data visualization tool that allows users to create interactive dashboards. When paired with CData Connect AI, users can easily create visualizations and dashboards linked to live Amazon Athena data. This article describes how to connect to Amazon Athena and build a simple visualization using Amazon Athena data.

CData Connect provides a pure cloud-to-cloud interface for Amazon Athena, allowing you to easily integrate with live Amazon Athena data in Metabase — without replicating the data. Connect looks exactly like a SQL Server database to Metabase and uses optimized data processing out of the box to push all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Amazon Athena, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return Amazon Athena data.

Getting Started

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Configure Amazon Athena Connectivity for Metabase

Connectivity to Amazon Athena from Metabase is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Amazon Athena data from Metabase, 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 Metabase.

Connect to CData Connect AI from Metabase

After creating the connection in Connect AI, navigate to your Metabase instance. Use the SQL Server interface to connect to Connect AI.

1. Navigate to the administration screen (Settings -> Admin) and click "Add Database" from the "Databases" tab 👁 Adding a new database connection to Metabase.
   
2. Configure the connection to Connect AI and click "Save"
   • Database type: Select "SQL Server"
   • Name: Name the connection (e.g. "Amazon Athena (Connect AI)")
   • Host: tds.cdata.com
   • Port: 14333
   • Database name: The name of the connection you just created (e.g. AmazonAthena1)
   • Username: A Connect AI username (e.g. [email protected])
   • Password: The PAT previously created
   • Click to Use a secure connection (SSL)
   👁 Configuring the connection to Connect AI.
   

Execute Amazon Athena Data with Metabase

Once you configure the connection to Connect AI, you can query Amazon Athena and build visualizations.

1. Use the "Write SQL" tool to retrieve the Amazon Athena data 👁 Click the 'Write SQL' button.
   
2. Write a SQL query based on the Amazon Athena connection in CData Connect AI, e.g.
   
   

   SELECT Name, TotalDue FROM Customers

   👁 Collected data (Salesforce is shown).
   
3. Navigate to the "Visualization" screen, choose a visualization, and configure the visualization 👁 Collected data (Salesforce is shown).
   

More Information & Free Trial

At this point, you have built a simple visualization from Amazon Athena data in Metabase. You can continue to work with live Amazon Athena data in Metabase just like you would any SQL Server database. For more information on creating a live connection to Amazon Athena (and more than 100 other data sources), visit the Connect AI page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live Amazon Athena data in Metabase today.