Reveal is a data visualization solution provided by Infragistics and can be paired with the CData API Server to build dynamic dashboards from live Databricks data. The CData API Server generates an OData API for Databricks, which is natively consumable in Reveal. In this article, we walk through connecting to Databricks in API Server and connecting to the API Server from Infragistics Reveal to create a simple dashboard.
About Databricks Data Integration
Accessing and integrating live data from Databricks has never been easier with CData. Customers rely on CData connectivity to:
- Access all versions of Databricks from Runtime Versions 9.1 - 13.X to both the Pro and Classic Databricks SQL versions.
- Leave Databricks in their preferred environment thanks to compatibility with any hosting solution.
- Secure authenticate in a variety of ways, including personal access token, Azure Service Principal, and Azure AD.
- Upload data to Databricks using Databricks File System, Azure Blog Storage, and AWS S3 Storage.
While many customers are using CData's solutions to migrate data from different systems into their Databricks data lakehouse, several customers use our live connectivity solutions to federate connectivity between their databases and Databricks. These customers are using SQL Server Linked Servers or Polybase to get live access to Databricks from within their existing RDBMs.
Read more about common Databricks use-cases and how CData's solutions help solve data problems in our blog: What is Databricks Used For? 6 Use Cases.
Getting Started
Connect to Databricks from API Server
CData API Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.
- Open API Server and click Settings -> Connection -> Add Connection
π Adding a connection
- Select "Databricks"
π Selecting a Connector (Salesforce is shown).
- Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Databricks.
To connect to a Databricks cluster, set the properties as described below.
Note: The needed values can be found in your Databricks instance by navigating to Clusters, and selecting the desired cluster,
and selecting the JDBC/ODBC tab under Advanced Options.
- Server: Set to the Server Hostname of your Databricks cluster.
- HTTPPath: Set to the HTTP Path of your Databricks cluster.
- Token: Set to your personal access token (this value can be obtained by navigating to the User Settings page of your Databricks instance and selecting the Access Tokens tab).
π Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown).
Add Databricks Resource Definitions in API Server
After connecting to Databricks, create Resources, which represent API endpoints for Databricks data.
- Click Settings -> Resources -> Add Resource
π Adding a new resource
- Select the Databricks connection
π Selecting a connection (Salesforce is shown)
- Select the table you wish to retrieve and click Next
π Selecting a Table (Salesforce is shown)
- (Optional) Edit the resource to select specific fields and more
- Save the settings
Add an API Server User
Create a User to connect to Databricks from Reveal through API Server.
- Click Settings -> Users
- Click Add
- Configure a User with access to the Databricks Connection and Resource(s)
π Creating a new user
π API Server users
(Optional) Configure Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)
When accessing and connecting to multiple different domains from an application such as Ajax, there is a possibility of violating the limitations of cross-site scripting. In that case, configure the CORS settings in Settings -> Server.
- Enable cross-origin resource sharing (CORS): ON
- Allow all domains without '*': ON
- Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, PUT, POST, OPTIONS
- Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization
Save the changes to the settings.
π Configuring CORS settings
Create a Dashboard in Reveal
With the API Server configured, we can visualize Databricks data in Reveal.
- Log into Reveal and click Dashboards -> New
π Adding a new dashboard
- Click Data Source -> OData Feed
π Adding a new OData data source
- Specify the API Server API endpoint URL, for example: https://serverurl/api.rsc
π Configuring the OData URL
- Select Generic Credentials and specify the API Server username and authentication token
π Configuring the credentials
- Select the entity you wish to visualize
π Selecting an entity to visualize (Salesforce is shown.)
- Select fields and choose a chart type
π Visualizing data in Reveal (Salesforce is shown.)
More Information & Free Trial
At this point, you have created a simple dashboard from live Databricks data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Databricks (and more than 150 other sources), visit the API Server page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live Databricks data in tools that consume OData APIs.