Create Reports from Elasticsearch Data in Looker Studio

Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism

Use CData Connect AI to gain access to live Elasticsearch data and create custom reports in Looker Studio.

Looker Studio, formerly known as Google Data Studio, empowers users to craft customized reports featuring data visualizations that can be shared with clients while reflecting your brand identity. When combined with CData Connect AI, you gain immediate cloud-to-cloud access to Elasticsearch data to create visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article provides step-by-step instructions on establishing a virtual database for Elasticsearch and generating reports from Elasticsearch data within Looker Studio.

CData Connect AI offers a seamless cloud-to-cloud interface tailored for Elasticsearch, making it straightforward to construct reports directly from live Elasticsearch data within Looker Studio without the need for data replication. As you create visualizations, Looker Studio generates queries to retrieve data. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently channels all supported query operations, including filters, JOINs, and more, directly to Elasticsearch. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly provide the requested Elasticsearch data.

About Elasticsearch Data Integration

Accessing and integrating live data from Elasticsearch has never been easier with CData. Customers rely on CData connectivity to:

Access both the SQL endpoints and REST endpoints, optimizing connectivity and offering more options when it comes to reading and writing Elasticsearch data.
Connect to virtually every Elasticsearch instance starting with v2.2 and Open Source Elasticsearch subscriptions.
Always receive a relevance score for the query results without explicitly requiring the SCORE() function, simplifying access from 3rd party tools and easily seeing how the query results rank in text relevance.
Search through multiple indices, relying on Elasticsearch to manage and process the query and results instead of the client machine.

Users frequently integrate Elasticsearch data with analytics tools such as Crystal Reports, Power BI, and Excel, and leverage our tools to enable a single, federated access layer to all of their data sources, including Elasticsearch.

For more information on CData's Elasticsearch solutions, check out our Knowledge Base article: CData Elasticsearch Driver Features & Differentiators.

Getting Started

This article requires a CData Connect AI instance and the CData Connect AI Connector for Looker Studio. Get more information on the CData Connect AI and sign up for a free trial at https://www.cdata.com/cloud.

Configure Elasticsearch Connectivity for Looker Studio

Connectivity to Elasticsearch from Looker Studio is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Elasticsearch data from Looker Studio, we start by creating and configuring a Elasticsearch connection.

Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

👁 Adding a Connection

Select "Elasticsearch" from the Add Connection panel

👁 Selecting a data source

Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Elasticsearch.
Set the Server and Port connection properties to connect. To authenticate, set the User and Password properties, PKI (public key infrastructure) properties, or both. To use PKI, set the SSLClientCert, SSLClientCertType, SSLClientCertSubject, and SSLClientCertPassword properties.

The data provider uses X-Pack Security for TLS/SSL and authentication. To connect over TLS/SSL, prefix the Server value with 'https://'. Note: TLS/SSL and client authentication must be enabled on X-Pack to use PKI.

Once the data provider is connected, X-Pack will then perform user authentication and grant role permissions based on the realms you have configured.
👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
Click Save & Test
Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Elasticsearch Connection page and update the User-based permissions. 👁 Updating permissions

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Elasticsearch data from Looker Studio.

Visualize Live Elasticsearch Data from Looker Studio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect AI from Looker Studio to create a new Elasticsearch data source and build a simple visualization from the data.

Log into Looker Studio, click data sources, create a new data source, and choose CData Connect AI Connector.

👁 Create a new connection in Looker Studio

Click Authorize and allow access to your Google account. 👁 Granting permissions to the Connector
Click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect AI instance 👁 Authenticating with CData Connect AI
In the CData Connect AI Connector in Looker Studio select Connections to import from the dropdown and click Next

👁 Importing from Connections

Now select a Connection (e.g. Elasticsearch1) and click Next 👁 Selecting a Connection
Select a Table (e.g. Orders) or use a Custom Query and click Connect to continue 👁 Selecting a Table
If needed, modify columns, click Create Report, and add the data source to the report.

👁 Configuring column definitions

Select a visualization style and add it to the report.
Select Dimensions and Measures to customize your visualization.

👁 Visualizing Elasticsearch data in Looker Studio

Live Access to Elasticsearch Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Elasticsearch data from your Looker Studio workbook. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating Elasticsearch data.

Try CData Connect AI and get real-time data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.

Ready to get started?

Learn more about CData Connect AI or sign up for free trial access:

Free Trial

URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/elasticsearch-cloud-google-data-studio.rst