Connect to Excel Data as an External Source in Dremio

The CData JDBC Driver for Microsoft Excel implements JDBC Standards and allows various applications, including Dremio, to work with live Excel data. Dremio is a data lakehouse platform designed to empower self-service, interactive analytics on the data lake. With the CData JDBC driver, you can include live Excel data as a part of your enterprise data lake. This article describes how to connect to Excel data from Dremio as an External Source.

The CData JDBC Driver enables high-speed access to live Excel data in Dremio. Once you install the driver, authenticate with Excel and gain immediate access to Excel data within your data lake. By surfacing Excel data using native data types and handling complex filters, aggregations, & other operations automatically, the CData JDBC Driver grants seamless access to Excel data.

Prerequisites

This article assumes you are utilizing Docker to run Dremio. You can create a Docker container with the Dremio service using a command similar to the follow:

docker run -d --name dremio -p 9047:9047 -p 31010:31010 dremio/dremio-oss

Where dremio is the name of the container, 9047 is the container's port for the Dremio web interface and 31010 is the port that maps to the Dremio query service. dremio/dremio-oss specifies the image to use.

Build the ARP Connector

To use the CData JDBC Driver in Dremio, you need to build an Advanced Relation Pushdown (ARP) Connector. You can view the source code for the Connector on GitHub or download the ZIP file (GitHub.com) directly. Once you copy or extract the files, run the following command from the root directory of the connector (the directory containing the pom.xml file) to build the connector.

mvn clean install

NOTE: The CData ARP Connectors are build to be compiled with Java 11. Be sure to install Java 11 and use the correct version. You can update your Java version using a command similar to the following:

sudo update-alternatives --config java

Once the JAR file for the connector is built (in the target directory), you are ready to copy the ARP connector and JDBC Driver to your Dremio instance.

Installing the Connector and JDBC Driver

Install the ARP Connector to %DREMIO_HOME%/jars/ and the JDBC Driver for Excel to %DREMIO_HOME%/jars/3rdparty. You can use commands similar to the following:

ARP Connector

docker cp PATH\TO\dremio-excel-plugin-{DREMIO_VERSION}.jar dremio_image_name:/opt/dremio/jars/

JDBC Driver for Excel

docker cp PATH\TO\cdata.jdbc.excel.jar dremio_image_name:/opt/dremio/jars/3rdparty/

Connecting to Excel

Excel will now appear as an External Source option in Dremio. The ARP Connector built uses a JDBC URL to connect to Excel data. The JDBC Driver has a built-in connection string designer that you can use (see below).

👁 External Sources via CData JDBC Drivers (Amazon DynamoDB & Couchbase are shown)

Built-in Connection String Designer

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

java -jar cdata.jdbc.excel.jar

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

Connecting to Local or Cloud-Stored (Box, Google Drive, Amazon S3, SharePoint) Excel Files

CData Drivers let you work with Excel files stored locally and stored in cloud storage services like Box, Amazon S3, Google Drive, or SharePoint, right where they are.

Setting connection properties for local files

Set the URI property to local folder path.

Setting connection properties for files stored in Amazon S3

To connect to Excel file(s) within Amazon S3, set the URI property to the URI of the Bucket and Folder where the intended Excel files exist. In addition, at least set these properties:

• AWSAccessKey: AWS Access Key (username)
• AWSSecretKey: AWS Secret Key

Setting connection properties for files stored in Box

To connect to Excel file(s) within Box, set the URI property to the URI of the folder that includes the intended Excel file(s). Use the OAuth authentication method to connect to Box.

Dropbox

To connect to Excel file(s) within Dropbox, set the URI proprerty to the URI of the folder that includes the intended Excel file(s). Use the OAuth authentication method to connect to Dropbox. Either User Account or Service Account can be used to authenticate.

SharePoint Online (SOAP)

To connect to Excel file(s) within SharePoint with SOAP Schema, set the URI proprerty to the URI of the document library that includes the intended Excel file. Set User, Password, and StorageBaseURL.

SharePoint Online REST

To connect to Excel file(s) within SharePoint with REST Schema, set the URI proprerty to the URI of the document library that includes the intended Excel file. StorageBaseURL is optional. If not set, the driver will use the root drive. OAuth is used to authenticate.

Google Drive

To connect to Excel file(s) within Google Drive, set the URI property to the URI of the folder that includes the intended Excel file(s). Use the OAuth authentication method to connect and set InitiateOAuth to GETANDREFRESH.

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

NOTE: To use the JDBC Driver in Dremio, you will need a license (full or trial) and a Runtime Key (RTK). For more information on obtaining this license (or a trial), contact our sales team.

Add the Runtime Key (RTK) to the JDBC URL. You will end up with a JDBC URL similar to the following:

jdbc:excel:RTK=5246...;URI='C:/MyExcelWorkbooks/SampleWorkbook.xlsx';

Access Excel as an External Source

To add Excel as an External Source, click to add a new source and select Excel. Copy the JDBC URL and paste it into the New Excel Source wizard.

👁 Entering the JDBC URL (Amazon DynamoDB is shown)

Save the connection and you are ready to query live Excel data in Dremio, easily incorporating Excel data into your data lake.

👁 Live data in Dremio (Amazon DynamoDB is shown)

More Information & Free Trial

Using the CData JDBC Driver for Microsoft Excel in Dremio, you can incorporate live Excel data into your data lake. Check out our CData JDBC Driver for Microsoft Excel page for more information about connecting to Excel. Download a free, 30 day trial of the CData JDBC Driver for Microsoft Excel and get started today.