Create Reports from Amazon S3 Data in Looker Studio

Looker Studio, formerly known as Google Data Studio, empowers users to craft customized reports featuring data visualizations that can be shared with clients while reflecting your brand identity. When combined with CData Connect Cloud, you gain immediate cloud-to-cloud access to Amazon S3 data to create visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article provides step-by-step instructions on establishing a virtual database for Amazon S3 and generating reports from Amazon S3 data within Looker Studio.

CData Connect Cloud offers a seamless cloud-to-cloud interface tailored for Amazon S3, making it straightforward to construct reports directly from live Amazon S3 data within Looker Studio without the need for data replication. As you create visualizations, Looker Studio generates queries to retrieve data. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect Cloud efficiently channels all supported query operations, including filters, JOINs, and more, directly to Amazon S3. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly provide the requested Amazon S3 data.

Configure Amazon S3 Connectivity for Looker Studio

Connectivity to Amazon S3 from Looker Studio is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Amazon S3 data from Looker Studio, we start by creating and configuring a Amazon S3 connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "Amazon S3" from the Add Connection panel
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Amazon S3.

   To authorize Amazon S3 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: You can connect as the AWS account administrator, but it is recommended to use IAM user credentials to access AWS services.

   For information on obtaining the credentials and other authentication methods, refer to the Getting Started section of the Help documentation.

4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Amazon S3 Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Amazon S3 data from Looker Studio.

Visualize Live Amazon S3 Data from Looker Studio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Cloud from Looker Studio to create a new Amazon S3 data source and build a simple visualization from the data.

1. Log into Looker Studio, click data sources, create a new data source, and choose CData Connect Cloud Connector.
2. Click Authorize and allow access to your Google account.
3. Click Authorize to authenticate with your CData Connect Cloud instance
4. In the CData Connect Cloud Connector in Looker Studio select a Connection (e.g. AmazonS31) and click Next
5. Select a Table (e.g. ObjectsACL) or use a Custom Query and click Connect to continue
6. If needed, modify columns, click Create Report, and add the data source to the report.
7. Select a visualization style and add it to the report.
8. Select Dimensions and Measures to customize your visualization.

Live Access to Amazon S3 Data from Cloud Applications

Now you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to live Amazon S3 data from your Looker Studio workbook. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating Amazon S3 data.

Try CData Connect Cloud and get real-time data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications.