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Use JayDeBeApi to access Amazon Athena Data in Python


Use standard Python scripting and the development environment of your choice to access live Amazon Athena data.

Access Amazon Athena data with Python scripts and standard SQL on any machine where Python and Java can be installed. You can use the CData JDBC Driver for Amazon Athena and the JayDeBeApi module to work with remote Amazon Athena data in Python. By using the CData Driver, you are leveraging a driver written for industry-proven standards to access your data in the popular Python language. This article shows how to use the driver to execute SQL queries to Amazon Athena and visualize Amazon Athena data with standard Python.

About Amazon Athena Data Integration

CData provides the easiest way to access and integrate live data from Amazon Athena. Customers use CData connectivity to:

  • Authenticate securely using a variety of methods, including IAM credentials, access keys, and Instance Profiles, catering to diverse security needs and simplifying the authentication process.
  • Streamline their setup and quickly resolve issue with detailed error messaging.
  • Enhance performance and minimize strain on client resources with server-side query execution.

Users frequently integrate Athena with analytics tools like Tableau, Power BI, and Excel for in-depth analytics from their preferred tools.

To learn more about unique Amazon Athena use cases with CData, check out our blog post: https://www.cdata.com/blog/amazon-athena-use-cases.


Getting Started


Use the JayDeBeApi module

JayDeBeApi is a Python library that serves as a JDBC (Java Database Connectivity) bridge, allowing Python programs to interact with Java databases, including CData JDBC Drivers. Use the pip install command to install the module:

pip install JayDeBeApi

Create the JDBC URL

Once you have JayDeBeApi installed, you are ready to work with Amazon Athena data in Python using SQL.

Authenticating to Amazon Athena

To authorize Amazon Athena requests, provide the credentials for an administrator account or for an IAM user with custom permissions: Set AccessKey to the access key Id. Set SecretKey to the secret access key.

Note: Though you can connect as the AWS account administrator, it is recommended to use IAM user credentials to access AWS services.

Obtaining the Access Key

To obtain the credentials for an IAM user, follow the steps below:

  1. Sign into the IAM console.
  2. In the navigation pane, select Users.
  3. To create or manage the access keys for a user, select the user and then select the Security Credentials tab.

To obtain the credentials for your AWS root account, follow the steps below:

  1. Sign into the AWS Management console with the credentials for your root account.
  2. Select your account name or number and select My Security Credentials in the menu that is displayed.
  3. Click Continue to Security Credentials and expand the Access Keys section to manage or create root account access keys.

Authenticating from an EC2 Instance

If you are using the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 from an EC2 Instance and have an IAM Role assigned to the instance, you can use the IAM Role to authenticate. To do so, set UseEC2Roles to true and leave AccessKey and SecretKey empty. The CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 will automatically obtain your IAM Role credentials and authenticate with them.

Authenticating as an AWS Role

In many situations it may be preferable to use an IAM role for authentication instead of the direct security credentials of an AWS root user. An AWS role may be used instead by specifying the RoleARN. This will cause the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 to attempt to retrieve credentials for the specified role. If you are connecting to AWS (instead of already being connected such as on an EC2 instance), you must additionally specify the AccessKey and SecretKey of an IAM user to assume the role for. Roles may not be used when specifying the AccessKey and SecretKey of an AWS root user.

Authenticating with MFA

For users and roles that require Multi-factor Authentication, specify the MFASerialNumber and MFAToken connection properties. This will cause the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 to submit the MFA credentials in a request to retrieve temporary authentication credentials. Note that the duration of the temporary credentials may be controlled via the TemporaryTokenDuration (default 3600 seconds).

Connecting to Amazon Athena

In addition to the AccessKey and SecretKey properties, specify Database, S3StagingDirectory and Region. Set Region to the region where your Amazon Athena data is hosted. Set S3StagingDirectory to a folder in S3 where you would like to store the results of queries.

If Database is not set in the connection, the data provider connects to the default database set in Amazon Athena.

Built-in Connection String Designer

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

java -jar cdata.jdbc.amazonathena.jar

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

Below is a sample variable assignment, including a typical JDBC connection string:

jdbc_url = "jdbc:amazonathena:AWSAccessKey='a123';AWSSecretKey='s123';AWSRegion='IRELAND';Database='sampledb';S3StagingDirectory='s3://bucket/staging/';"

Access Amazon Athena data in Python

With the JDBC URL configured, you only need the absolute path to the JDBC driver JAR file, which is in the "lib" folder in the installation directory ("C:\Program Files\CData[product_name] 20XX\lib\cdata.jdbc.amazonathena.jar" on Windows).

NOTE: If you haven't already, set the JAVA_HOME environment variable to the Java installation directory.

Use code similar to the follow to read and print data from Amazon Athena:

import jaydebeapi #The JDBC connection string jdbc_url = "jdbc:amazonathena:AWSAccessKey='a123';AWSSecretKey='s123';AWSRegion='IRELAND';Database='sampledb';S3StagingDirectory='s3://bucket/staging/';" username = "****" password = "****" #The absolute Path to the JDBC driver JAR file, typically: jdbc_driver_jar = "C:\Program Files\CData[product_name] 20XX\lib\cdata.jdbc.amazonathena.jar" conn = jaydebeapi.connect( "cdata.jdbc.amazonathena.AmazonAthenaDriver", jdbc_url, [username, password], jdbc_driver_jar, ) cursor = conn.cursor() cursor.execute("SELECT * FROM Customers;") results = cursor.fetchall() for row in results: print(row) cursor.close() conn.close()

Free trial & more information

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData JDBC Driver for Amazon Athena and start working with your live Amazon Athena data in Python. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.

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