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URL: https://www.cdata.com/kb/tech/presto-cloud-powerbi-service-gateway.rst

⇱ Visualize Live Presto Data in the Power BI Service

Visualize Live Presto Data in the Power BI Service

👁 Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Use CData Connect AI to connect to live Presto data and create custom reports in the Power BI Service through the On-Premises Gateway.

Power BI transforms your company's data into rich visuals for you to collect and organize so you can focus on what matters to you. When paired with CData Connect AI, you get instant access to Presto data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to build and publish a dataset from Presto data in Power BI and then create reports on Presto data in the Power BI service.

CData Connect AI provides a pure SQL interface for Presto, allowing you to easily build reports from live Presto data in Power BI — with no need to replicate the data. As you build visualizations, Power BI generates SQL queries to gather data. 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 quickly return Presto data.

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


NOTE: You can also import Presto data into Power BI through Connect AI (instead of using the on-premise gateway). Read how in the related Knowledge Base article.

Configure Presto Connectivity for Power BI

Connectivity to Presto from Power BI is made possible through CData Connect AI. To work with Presto data from Power BI, 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 Power BI.

Connecting to Connect AI from Power BI

To connect to and visualize live Presto data in the Power BI service, install the on-premise data gateway, add a data source to the gateway from the Power BI service, and publish a dataset from Power BI Desktop to the service.

Install the On-Premises Data Gateway

The Microsoft on-premise data gateway provides secure data transfer between connected data sources and various cloud-based Microsoft tools and platforms. You can read more about the gateway in the Microsoft documentation.

You can download and install the gateway from the Power BI service:

  1. Log in to PowerBI.com.
  2. Click the Download menu and click Data Gateway. 👁 Download the Data Gateway
  3. Follow the instructions for installation, making note of the name of the gateway.

Add Presto as a Data Source to the Power BI Service

Once you have installed the data gateway, you add Connect AI as a data source to the Power BI service:

  1. Log in to PowerBI.com.
  2. Click the Settings menu and click "Manage gateways." 👁 Settings -> Manage gateways
  3. Click "ADD DATA SOURCE" and configure the connection to Connect AI:

    • Set Data Source Name to something like ConnectCloudPresto.
    • Choose SQL Server as the Data Source Type.
    • Set Server to tds.cdata.com,14333.
    • Set Database to the name of your Presto connection (e.g. Presto1).
    • Set Authentication Method to Basic.
    • Set Username to a Connect AI user (e.g. [email protected])
    • Set Password to the PAT for the user above.

Publish a Dataset from Power BI Desktop

With the gateway installed and Connect AI added as a datasource to the Power BI service, you can publish a dataset from Power BI Desktop to the service.

  1. Open Power BI, click Get Data -> More, then select SQL Server database, and click Connect.
    2. 👁 Create a new connection in Power BI
  2. Set the connection properties and click OK.
    • Set Server to tds.cdata.com,14333.
    • Set Database to the name of your Presto connection (e.g. Presto1).
    • Set Data Connectivity mode to DirectQuery*.
    👁 Connect to CData Connect AI instance
    * DirectQuery enables live query processing and real-time visualizations of Presto data.
  3. In the authentication wizard, select Database, set the User name and Password properties, and click Connect.
    4. 👁 Authenticate the connection
  4. Select the table(s) to visualize in the Navigator dialog.
  5. In the Query Editor, you can customize your dataset by filtering, sorting, and summarizing Presto columns. Click Edit to open the query editor. Right-click a raw to filter the rows. Right-click a column header to perform options like the following:
    • Change column data types
    • Remove a column
    • Group by columns

    Power BI detects each column's data type from the Presto metadata reported by Connect AI.

    Power BI records your modifications to the query in the Applied Steps section, adjusting the underlying data retrieval query that is executed to the remote Presto data. When you click Close and Apply, Power BI executes the data Retrieval query.

    Otherwise, click Load to pull the data into Power BI.

  6. Define any relationships between the selected entities on the Relationships tab.
  7. Click Publish (from the Home menu) and select a Workspace.

Build Reports and Dashboards on Presto Data in the Power BI Service

Now that you have published a dataset to the Power BI service, you can create new reports and dashboards based on the published data:

  1. Log in to PowerBI.com.
  2. Click Workspaces and select a workspace.
  3. Click Create and select Report.
  4. Select the published dataset for the report. 👁 Select a dataset
  5. Choose fields and visualizations to add to your report. 👁 Visualizing Presto data in the Power BI service

Live Access to Presto Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct connection to live Presto data from the Power BI service. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating Presto data.

To get live data access to hundreds of SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, sign up for a free trial of CData Connect AI.