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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/presto-cloud-crystal-reports.rst

⇱ Connect to Presto Data from Crystal Reports

Connect to Presto Data from Crystal Reports

👁 Mohsin Turki
Mohsin Turki
Technical Marketing Engineer
Use CData Connect AI to connect to and report on live Presto data from Crystal Reports.

Crystal Reports is a business intelligence application by SAP designed to help you analyze your data with well-formatted, pixel-perfect, and multi-page reports. When paired with CData Connect AI, Crystal Reports gets access to live Presto data. This article demonstrates how to connect to Presto using Connect AI and report on Presto data in Crystal Reports.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL Server interface for Presto, allowing you to query data from Presto 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 Presto, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Presto data quickly.

About Presto Data Integration

Accessing and integrating live data from Trino and Presto SQL engines has never been easier with CData. Customers rely on CData connectivity to:

  • Access data from Trino v345 and above (formerly PrestoSQL) and Presto v0.242 and above (formerly PrestoDB)
  • Read and write access all of the data underlying your Trino or Presto instances
  • Optimized query generation for maximum throughput.

Presto and Trino allow users to access a variety of underlying data sources through a single endpoint. When paired with CData connectivity, users get pure, SQL-92 access to their instances, allowing them to integrate business data with a data warehouse or easily access live data directly from their preferred tools, like Power BI and Tableau.

In many cases, CData's live connectivity surpasses the native import functionality available in tools. One customer was unable to effectively use Power BI due to the size of the datasets needed for reporting. When the company implemented the CData Power BI Connector for Presto they were able to generate reports in real-time using the DirectQuery connection mode.


Getting Started


Configure Presto Connectivity for Crystal Reports

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

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
    2. 👁 Adding a Connection
  2. Select "Presto" from the Add Connection panel
    3. 👁 Selecting a data source
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Presto.

    Set the Server and Port connection properties to connect, in addition to any authentication properties that may be required.

    To enable TLS/SSL, set UseSSL to true.

    Authenticating with LDAP

    In order to authenticate with LDAP, set the following connection properties:

    • AuthScheme: Set this to LDAP.
    • User: The username being authenticated with in LDAP.
    • Password: The password associated with the User you are authenticating against LDAP with.

    Authenticating with Kerberos

    In order to authenticate with KERBEROS, set the following connection properties:

    • AuthScheme: Set this to KERBEROS.
    • KerberosKDC: The Kerberos Key Distribution Center (KDC) service used to authenticate the user.
    • KerberosRealm: The Kerberos Realm used to authenticate the user with.
    • KerberosSPN: The Service Principal Name for the Kerberos Domain Controller.
    • KerberosKeytabFile: The Keytab file containing your pairs of Kerberos principals and encrypted keys.
    • User: The user who is authenticating to Kerberos.
    • Password: The password used to authenticate to Kerberos.
    👁 Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  4. Click Save & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Presto 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 Presto data from Crystal Reports.

Connect to Presto from Crystal Reports using Connect AI

To establish a connection from Crystal Reports to CData Connect AI, you will need to download the JDBC driver.

  1. Open the Client Tools page of CData Connect AI.
  2. Search for and select JDBC.
  3. Download and run the setup file.
  4. When the installation is complete, locate the JDBC Connect JAR file in the JDBC driver's installation directory, for example, C:\Program Files\CData\JDBC Driver for CData Connect\lib.
  5. Copy the JDBC Connect JAR file (cdata.jdbc.connect.jar).

After copying the JDBC CData Connect JAR file, you will need to paste it into the Crystal Reports installation location and configure the connection to Connect AI.

  1. Find the installation directory for Crystal Reports, for example, C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\java\lib
  2. Paste the JDBC Connect JAR file into the Crystal Reports installation directory.
  3. Go to the parent java folder. For example, C:\Program Files (x86)\SAP BusinessObjects\SAP BusinessObjects Enterprise XI 4.0\java This folder should contain a CRConfig file. 👁 Locating the CRConfig file in the Crystal Reports installation directory.
  4. Open CRConfig in a text editor.
  5. Add the path to the JDBC CData Connect JAR file in the
  6. Log into Crystal Reports and start a blank report.
  7. In the Database Expert dialog, click Create New Connection.
  8. Select the JDBC data source and the tables you want to add. Click OK. 👁 Selecting the JDBC data source.
  9. In the Connection dialog, enter the Connection URL (e.g. jdbc:connect:AuthScheme=Basic;user=username;password=PAT;) and Database Classname (e.g. cdata.jdbc.connect.ConnectDriver). 👁 Configuring the connection.
  10. Click Finish. The Database Expert dialog displays all available connections. 👁 Browsing the available data from Connect AI.

You can now create reports with the connected data.

Get CData Connect AI

To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from Crystal Reports, try CData Connect AI today!