Connect to Amazon Athena Data in the Denodo Platform

Denodo Platform is a data virtualization product providing a single point of contact for enterprise database data. When paired with the CData JDBC Driver for Amazon Athena, Denodo users can work with live Amazon Athena data alongside other enterprise data sources. This article walks through creating a virtual data source for Amazon Athena in the Denodo Virtual DataPort Administrator.

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.

Create the Amazon Athena Virtual Port

To connect to live Amazon Athena data from Denodo, you need to copy the JDBC Driver JAR file to the external library directory for Denodo and create a new JDBC Data Source from the Virtual DataPort Administrator tool.

1. Download the CData JDBC Driver for Amazon Athena installer, unzip the package, and run the JAR file to install the driver.
2. Copy the JAR File (and license file if it exists) from the installation location (typically C:\Program Files\CData\CData JDBC Driver for Amazon Athena\lib\) to the Denodo external library directory (C:\Denodo\Denodo Platform\lib-external\jdbc-drivers\cdata-amazonathena-19).
3. Open the Denodo Virtual DataPort Administrator tool and navigate to the Server Explorer tab.
4. Right-click "admin" and select New -> Data source -> JDBC.
5. Configure the JDBC Connection:
   • Name: your choice, e.g.: amazonathena
   • Database adapter: Generic
   • Driver class path: C:\Denodo\Denodo Platform\lib-external\jdbc-drivers\cdata-amazonathena-19
   • Driver class: cdata.jdbc.amazonathena.AmazonAthenaDriver

   • Database URI: Set this to a JDBC URL using the necessary connection properties. For example,

     jdbc:amazonathena:AccessKey='a123';SecretKey='s123';Region='IRELAND';Database='sampledb';S3StagingDirectory='s3://bucket/staging/';

     Information on creating the Database URI follows:

     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.

6. Click the "Test connection" button to confirm the configuration and click Save.

View Amazon Athena Data in the VirtualPort Administrator Tool

After creating the data source, you can create a base view of Amazon Athena data for use in the Denodo Platform.

1. Click the "Create base view" button in the newly created VirtualPort (admin.AmazonAthena).
2. Expand the object tree and select the objects (tables) you wish to import.
3. Click the "Create selected" button to create views of the Amazon Athena data.
   Optional: Click "Create associations from foreign keys" to define relationships between the objects.
4. With the view(s) created, navigate to a table (cdata_amazonathena_customers) in the Server Explorer and double-click the selected table.
5. In the new tab, click "Execution panel" to open a query panel.
6. Customize the query in the "Execute" tab or use the default:

   SELECT * FROM cdata_amazonathena_customers CONTEXT ('i18n'='us_est', 'cache_wait_for_load'='true')
   

7. Click Execute to view the data.

With the base view created, you can now work with live Amazon Athena data like you would any other data source in Denodo Platform, for example, querying Amazon Athena in the Denodo Data Catalog.

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