Create Amazon S3 Dashboards in Bold BI

Bold BI allows you to create, share, and collaborate on interactive BI dashboards. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get instant access to Amazon S3 data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for Amazon S3 and build reports from Amazon S3 data in Bold BI.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for Amazon S3, allowing you to easily build reports from live Amazon S3 data in Bold BI — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, Bold BI generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Server pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Amazon S3, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested Amazon S3 data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for Amazon S3 Data

CData Connect Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Login to Connect Server and click Connections.
2. Select "Amazon S3" from Available Data Sources.
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 Save Changes
5. Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions.

With the virtual database created, you are ready to connect to Amazon S3 data from Bold BI.

Visualize Live Amazon S3 Data in Bold BI

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Server from Bold BI to create a new Amazon S3 data source and build a simple visualization from the data.

1. Log into your Bold BI instance, click the data sources tab, create a new data source, and choose the SQL Server connector.
2. Choose the basic configuration and set the connection properties:
   • Name: Name your connection
   • Server name: Your Connect Server instance (CONNECT_SERVER_URL)
   • Port: 1433
   • Username: Your Connect Server username
   • Password: Your Connect Server password
   • Mode: Choose Live to query Amazon S3 on-demand or choose Extract to load the data into Bold BI
   • Database: Choose the database you created from the drop-down menu (amazons3db)
3. Click Connect
4. Select the table to visualize and drag it onto the workspace.
5. Select a visualization style and add it to the report.
6. Click the gear icon for the visualization to configure the visualization properties and assign columns to the visualization.

SQL Access to Amazon S3 Data from Applications

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

To get SQL data access to 200+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your applications, see the CData Connect page.