Connect to Google Spanner Data in RapidMiner

This article shows how you can easily integrate the CData JDBC driver for Google Spanner into your processes in RapidMiner. This article uses the CData JDBC Driver for Google Spanner to transfer Google Spanner data to a process in RapidMiner.

Connect to Google Spanner in RapidMiner as a JDBC Data Source

You can follow the procedure below to establish a JDBC connection to Google Spanner:

1. Add a new database driver for Google Spanner: Click Connections -> Manage Database Drivers.
2. In the resulting wizard, click the Add button and enter a name for the connection.
3. Enter the prefix for the JDBC URL: jdbc:googlespanner:
4. Enter the path to the cdata.jdbc.googlespanner.jar file, located in the lib subfolder of the installation directory.
5. Enter the driver class: cdata.jdbc.googlespanner.GoogleSpannerDriver
6. Create a new Google Spanner connection: Click Connections -> Manage Database Connections.
7. Enter a name for your connection.
8. For Database System, select the Google Spanner driver you configured previously.
9. Enter your connection string in the Host box.

   Google Spanner uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, you can use the embedded credentials or register an app with Google.

   See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for more information.

   Built-in Connection String Designer

   For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Google Spanner JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

   java -jar cdata.jdbc.googlespanner.jar

   Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

   A typical connection string is below:

   ProjectId='project1';InstanceId='instance1';Database='db1';InitiateOAuth=GETANDREFRESH
10. Enter your username and password if necessary.

You can now use your Google Spanner connection with the various RapidMiner operators in your process. To retrieve Google Spanner data, drag the Retrieve operator from the Operators view. With the Retrieve operator selected, you can then define which table to retrieve in the Parameters view by clicking the folder icon next to the "repository entry." In the resulting Repository Browser, you can expand your connection node to select the desired example set.

Finally, wire the output to the Retrieve process to a result, and run the process to see the Google Spanner data.