Stream Amazon Athena Data into Apache Kafka Topics

Apache Kafka is an open-source stream processing platform that is primarily used for building real-time data pipelines and event-driven applications. When paired with the CData JDBC Driver for Amazon Athena, Kafka can work with live Amazon Athena data. This article describes how to connect, access and stream Amazon Athena data into Apache Kafka Topics and to start Confluent Control Center to help users secure, manage, and monitor the Amazon Athena data received using Kafka infrastructure in the Confluent Platform.

With built-in optimized data processing, the CData JDBC Driver offers unmatched performance for interacting with live Amazon Athena data. When you issue complex SQL queries to Amazon Athena, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Amazon Athena and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations client-side (often SQL functions and JOIN operations). Its built-in dynamic metadata querying allows you to work with and analyze Amazon Athena data using native data types.

Getting Started

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Prerequisites

Before connecting the CData JDBC Driver for streaming Amazon Athena data in Apache Kafka Topics, install and configure the following in the client Linux-based system.

1. Confluent Platform for Apache Kafka
2. Confluent Hub CLI Installation
3. Self-Managed Kafka JDBC Source Connector for Confluent Platform

Define a New JDBC Connection to Amazon Athena data

1. Download CData JDBC Driver for Amazon Athena on a Linux-based system
2. Follow the given instructions to create a new directory extract all the driver contents into it:
   1. Create a new directory named Amazon Athena mkdir AmazonAthena
   2. Move the downloaded driver file (.zip) into this new directory mv AmazonAthenaJDBCDriver.zip AmazonAthena/
   3. Unzip the CData AmazonAthenaJDBCDriver contents into this new directory unzip AmazonAthenaJDBCDriver.zip
3. Open the Amazon Athena directory and navigate to the lib folder ls cd lib/
4. Copy the contents of the lib folder of Amazon Athena into the lib folder of Kafka Connect JDBC. Check the Kafka Connect JDBC folder contents to confirm that the cdata.jdbc.amazonathena.jar file is successfully copied into the lib folder cp * ../../confluent-7.5.0/share/confluent-hub-components/confluentinc-kafka-connect-jdbc/lib/ cd ../../confluent-7.5.0/share/confluent-hub-components/confluentinc-kafka-connect-jdbc/lib/
5. Install the CData Amazon Athena JDBC driver license using the given command, followed by your Name and Email ID java -jar cdata.jdbc.amazonathena.jar -l
6. Enter the product key or "TRIAL" (In the scenarios of license expiry, please contact our CData Support team)
7. Start the Confluent local services using the command: confluent local services start

   This starts all the Confluent Services like Zookeeper, Kafka, Schema Registry, Kafka REST, Kafka CONNECT, ksqlDB and Control Center. You are now ready to use the CData JDBC driver for Amazon Athena to stream messages using Kafka Connect Driver into Kafka Topics on ksqlDB.

8. Create the Kafka topics manually using a POST HTTP API Request: curl --location 'server_address:8083/connectors' --header 'Content-Type: application/json' --data '{ "name": "jdbc_source_cdata_amazonathena_01", "config": { "connector.class": "io.confluent.connect.jdbc.JdbcSourceConnector", "connection.url": "jdbc:amazonathena:AWSAccessKey='a123';AWSSecretKey='s123';AWSRegion='IRELAND';Database='sampledb';S3StagingDirectory='s3://bucket/staging/';", "topic.prefix": "amazonathena-01-", "mode": "bulk" } }'

   Let us understand the fields used in the HTTP POST body (shown above):

   • connector.class: Specifies the Java class of the Kafka Connect connector to be used.
   • connection.url: The JDBC connection URL to connect with Amazon Athena data.

     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.

     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.

   • topic.prefix: A prefix that will be added to the Kafka topics created by the connector. It's set to "amazonathena-01-".
   • mode: Specifies the mode in which the connector operates. In this case, it's set to "bulk", which suggests that the connector is configured to perform bulk data transfer.

   This request adds all the tables/contents from Amazon Athena as Kafka Topics.

   Note: The IP Address (server) to POST the request (shown above) is the Linux Network IP Address.

9. Run ksqlDB and list the topics. Use the commands: ksql list topics;
10. To view the data inside the topics, type the SQL Statement: PRINT topic FROM BEGINNING;

Connecting with the Confluent Control Center

To access the Confluent Control Center user interface, ensure to run the "confluent local services" as described in the above section and type http://<server address>:9021/clusters/ on your local browser.

Get Started Today

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData JDBC Driver for Amazon Athena and start streaming Amazon Athena data into Apache Kafka. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.