Connect to Jira Service Management Data as an External Data Source using PolyBase

PolyBase for SQL Server allows you to query external data by using the same Transact-SQL syntax used to query a database table. When paired with the CData ODBC Driver for Jira Service Management, you get access to your Jira Service Management data directly alongside your SQL Server data. This article describes creating an external data source and external tables to grant access to live Jira Service Management data using T-SQL queries.

NOTE: PolyBase is only available on SQL Server 19 and above.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for Jira Service Management, allowing you to query data from Jira Service Management without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect AI pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Jira Service Management, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Jira Service Management data quickly.

Configure Jira Service Management Connectivity for PolyBase

Connectivity to Jira Service Management from PolyBase is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Jira Service Management data from PolyBase, we start by creating and configuring a Jira Service Management connection.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
👁 Adding a Connection

2. Select "Jira Service Management" from the Add Connection panel
👁 Selecting a data source

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Jira Service Management.

   You can establish a connection to any Jira Service Desk Cloud account or Server instance.

   Connecting with a Cloud Account

   To connect to a Cloud account, you'll first need to retrieve an APIToken. To generate one, log in to your Atlassian account and navigate to API tokens > Create API token. The generated token will be displayed.

   Supply the following to connect to data:

   • User: Set this to the username of the authenticating user.
   • APIToken: Set this to the API token found previously.

   Connecting with a Service Account

   To authenticate with a service account, supply the following connection properties:

   • User: Set this to the username of the authenticating user.
   • Password: Set this to the password of the authenticating user.
   • URL: Set this to the URL associated with your JIRA Service Desk endpoint. For example, https://yoursitename.atlassian.net.

   Note: Password has been deprecated for connecting to a Cloud Account and is now used only to connect to a Server Instance.

   Accessing Custom Fields

   By default, the connector only surfaces system fields. To access the custom fields for Issues, set IncludeCustomFields.

   👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
   
4. Click Save & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Jira Service Management 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 Jira Service Management data from Polybase.

Create an External Data Source for Jira Service Management Data

After configuring the connection, you need to create a credential database for the external data source.

Creating a Credential Database

Execute the following SQL command to create credentials for the external data source connected to Jira Service Management data.

NOTE: Set IDENTITY to your Connect AI username and set SECRET to your Personal Access Token.

CREATE DATABASE SCOPED CREDENTIAL ConnectCloudCredentials
WITH IDENTITY = 'yourusername', SECRET = 'yourPAT';

Create an External Data Source for Jira Service Management

Execute a CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE SQL command to create an external data source for Jira Service Management with PolyBase:

CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE ConnectCloudInstance
WITH ( 
 LOCATION = 'sqlserver://tds.cdata.com:14333',
 PUSHDOWN = ON,
 CREDENTIAL = ConnectCloudCredentials
);

Create External Tables for Jira Service Management

After creating the external data source, use CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE statements to link to Jira Service Management data from your SQL Server instance. The table column definitions must match those exposed by CData Connect AI. You can use the Data Explorer in Connect AI to see the table definition.

👁 Table definition in the Data Explorer (Salesforce is shown)

Sample CREATE TABLE Statement

Execute a CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE SQL command to create the external table(s), using the collation and setting the LOCATION to three-part notation for the connection, catalog, and table. The statement to create an external table based on a Jira Service Management Requests would look similar to the following.

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE Requests(
 RequestId COLLATE [nvarchar](255) NULL,
 ReporterName COLLATE [nvarchar](255) NULL,
 ...
) WITH ( 
 LOCATION='JiraServiceDesk1.JiraServiceDesk.Requests',
 DATA_SOURCE=ConnectCloudInstance
);

Having created external tables for Jira Service Management in your SQL Server instance, you are now able to query local and remote data simultaneously. To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your SQL Server database, try CData Connect AI today!