Query, Visualize, and Share live Azure Analysis Services Data in Redash

Redash is a collaboration tool that lets you query, visualize, and share your data. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, Redash gets access to live Azure Analysis Services data. This article demonstrates how to connect to Azure Analysis Services using Connect Cloud and work with live Azure Analysis Services data in Redash.

CData Connect Cloud provides a pure SQL Server interface for Azure Analysis Services, allowing you to query data from Azure Analysis Services without replicating the data to a natively supported database. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Cloud pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc.) directly to Azure Analysis Services, leveraging server-side processing to return the requested Azure Analysis Services data quickly.

Configure Azure Analysis Services Connectivity for Redash

Connectivity to Azure Analysis Services from Redash is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Azure Analysis Services data in Redash, we start by creating and configuring a Azure Analysis Services connection.

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

   To connect to Azure Analysis Services, set the Url property to a valid server, for instance, asazure://southcentralus.asazure.windows.net/server, in addition to authenticating. Optionally, set Database to distinguish which Azure database on the server to connect to.

   Azure Analysis Services uses the OAuth authentication standard. OAuth requires the authenticating user to interact with Azure Analysis Services using the browser. You can connect without setting any connection properties for your user credentials. See the Help documentation for more information.

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

Add a Personal Access Token

If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.

1. Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
2. On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
3. Give your PAT a name and click Create.
4. The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.

Connect to Azure Analysis Services from Redash using Connect Cloud

To establish a connection from Redash to CData Connect Cloud using the SQL Server API, follow these steps.

1. Log into Redash.
2. Click the settings widget on the top right.
3. Click New Data Source.
4. Select Microsoft SQL Server as the Data Source Type.
5. On the configuration tab, set the following properties:
   • Database Name: enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect Cloud data source you want to connect to (for example, Salesforce1).
   • Server: enter the virtual SQL Server host name (tds.cdata.com)
   • User: enter your CData Connect Cloud username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect Cloud interface. For example, [email protected].
   • Password: enter the PAT you generated on the Settings page.
   • Port: enter 14333
6. Click Create.
7. Click Test Connection to ensure that the connection is configured properly.

You can now work with live Azure Analysis Services data in Redash.

Get CData Connect Cloud

To get live data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from Redash, try CData Connect Cloud today!