Connect to Amazon Athena in SpagoBI

The CData JDBC Driver for Amazon Athena enables you to connect to live Amazon Athena data from business intelligence and data mining tools that support the JDBC standard. This article shows how to integrate Amazon Athena data into a report in SpagoBI Studio and host it on SpagoBI Server.

Getting Started

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• Deploy the Driver in SpagoBI Server
• Create a Report in SpagoBI Studio
• Host Amazon Athena Reports on SpagoBI Server

Deploy the JDBC Driver in SpagoBI Server

Follow the steps to create a JDBC data source for Amazon Athena in SpagoBI Server.

1. Copy the driver JAR into %CATALINA_BASE%/lib. These files are located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.

2. Add a Amazon Athena driver resource to the context. The following resource definition can be added to the GlobalNamingResources element in server.xml:

   <Resource name="jdbc/amazonathena" auth="Container" type="javax.sql.DataSource" driverclassname="cdata.jdbc.amazonathena.AmazonAthenaDriver" factory="org.apache.tomcat.jdbc.pool.DataSourceFactory" maxactive="20" maxidle="10" maxwait="-1"/>

3. Add the following resource link to give access to Web applications. For this article, add the following line to META-INF\context.xml for SpagoBI.

   <ResourceLink global="jdbc/amazonathena" name="jdbc/amazonathena" type="javax.sql.DataSource"/>
   

4. Restart the server.

After adding the driver to the resources for the SpagoBI server, add the data source: In SpagoBI, click Resources -> Data Source -> Add and enter the following information:

• Label: Enter a unique identifier for the driver.
• Description: Enter a description for the driver.
• Dialect: Select Default Dialect.
• Read Only: Select the read-only option. This option determines whether the data source is the default database to save datasets created by the end user.
• Type: Select JDBC.
• URL: Enter the JDBC URL using the required connection string properties:

  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.

  Built-in Connection String Designer

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

  java -jar cdata.jdbc.amazonathena.jar
  

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

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

  A typical JDBC URL is below:

  jdbc:amazonathena:AWSAccessKey='a123';AWSSecretKey='s123';AWSRegion='IRELAND';Database='sampledb';S3StagingDirectory='s3://bucket/staging/';
  

• Driver: Enter the class name for the driver: cdata.jdbc.amazonathena.AmazonAthenaDriver

👁 The configuration for the Amazon Athena JDBC data source. (Salesforce is shown.)

Create Reports in SpagoBI Studio

Follow the steps below to populate reports based on Amazon Athena data in SpagoBI Studio. You will create a dataset that populates a chart with the results of an SQL query. In the next section, you will host this report on SpagoBI Server.

First, you will need to connect to Amazon Athena data from a report in SpagoBI Studio:

1. In SpagoBI Studio, click File -> New -> Project and select Report Project in the Business Intelligence and Reporting Tools folder.
2. Click File -> New -> Report and select Blank Report.
3. In the Data Explorer view, right-click Data Sources and click New Data Source.
4. Select JDBC Data Source and enter a name for the data source.
5. Click Manage Drivers and click Add to add the driver JAR, cdata.jdbc.amazonathena.jar. The driver JAR is located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
6. In the Driver Class menu, select the driver class, cdata.jdbc.amazonathena.AmazonAthenaDriver.
7. In the Database URL box, enter the JDBC URL. A typical JDBC URL is below:

   jdbc:amazonathena:AWSAccessKey='a123';AWSSecretKey='s123';AWSRegion='IRELAND';Database='sampledb';S3StagingDirectory='s3://bucket/staging/';
   

   See the "Getting Started" chapter of the driver help for a guide to obtaining the required connection properties. 👁 The JDBC data source. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

After you have connected to Amazon Athena data, create a dataset that contains the results of an SQL query:

1. Right-click the DataSet folder and click New Data Set. Select the JDBC data source for Amazon Athena and enter a name for the dataset.
2. Build the SQL query. In this example, this query will be used to add a chart to the dashboard. For example:

   SELECT Name, TotalDue FROM Customers
   

   👁 The query to be used to populate a chart. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

You can use the dataset to populate report objects. Follow the steps below to create a chart.

1. In the Palette view, drag a chart onto the canvas.
2. In the Select Chart Type tab, select a bar chart.
3. In the Select Data tab, click the Use Data From option and select the Amazon Athena data set from the menu.
4. Drag Name from the table to the series for the x-axis.
5. Drag TotalDue from the table to the series for the y-axis. 👁 Columns in the dataset defined as the x- and y-axes for the chart. (Salesforce is shown.)
   

Host Amazon Athena Reports on SpagoBI Server

Follow the steps below to host documents based on live Amazon Athena data on SpagoBI Server. You will use the report you created in the previous section as a template. To enable report users to access the live data, create placeholder parameters to be replaced by the Amazon Athena JDBC data source on the server:

1. If you have not already done so, open the Report Design perspective in SpagoBI Studio.
2. In the Data Explorer view, right-click the Report Parameters folder and click New Parameter. Add the url parameter and assign an empty value to it. This parameter is a placeholder for the JDBC data source on the SpagoBI Server.
3. Right-click the Amazon Athena data source and click Edit.

4. In the Property Binding node, set the JDBC Driver URL binding property to the url parameter: Click the box for the property. In the Category section, select Report Parameters. Select All in the Subcategory section and double-click the parameter.

   You can also enter the following in the JavaScript syntax:

   params["url"].value
   

   👁 Placeholder values in the report for the JDBC data source on the server.
   

Next, create a new document for the report on SpagoBI Server.

1. In SpagoBI Server, click Documents Development -> Create Document -> Generic Document. The Document Details page is displayed.
2. To create the document, enter the following:
   • Label: Enter a unique identifier for the document.
   • Name: Enter a user-friendly name for the document.
   • Type: Select Report from the menu.
   • Engine: Select BIRT Report Engine.
   • Data Source: Select the Amazon Athena Data Source you created in Create a JDBC Data Source for Amazon Athena in SpagoBI Server.
3. In the Show Document Templates section, select the folder where you want the document to be stored.

4. In the Template section, click Choose File. Navigate to the folder containing your report project. Select the .rptdesign file.

   Note: You can find the path to the project in the project properties.

5. Click the Save button.

👁 The document using the report as a template. (Salesforce is shown.)

When you run the report on the server, the placeholder url parameter is replaced with the JDBC URL defined on the server.

👁 The chart running on the SpagoBI Server. (Salesforce is shown.)