Create Reports from Redshift 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 Redshift data to create visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article provides step-by-step instructions on establishing a virtual database for Redshift and generating reports from Redshift data within Looker Studio.

CData Connect Cloud offers a seamless cloud-to-cloud interface tailored for Redshift, making it straightforward to construct reports directly from live Redshift 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 Redshift. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly provide the requested Redshift data.

Configure Redshift Connectivity for Looker Studio

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

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

   To connect to Redshift, set the following:

   • Server: Set this to the host name or IP address of the cluster hosting the Database you want to connect to.
   • Port: Set this to the port of the cluster.
   • Database: Set this to the name of the database. Or, leave this blank to use the default database of the authenticated user.
   • User: Set this to the username you want to use to authenticate to the Server.
   • Password: Set this to the password you want to use to authenticate to the Server.

   You can obtain the Server and Port values in the AWS Management Console:

   1. Open the Amazon Redshift console (http://console.aws.amazon.com/redshift).
   2. On the Clusters page, click the name of the cluster.
   3. On the Configuration tab for the cluster, copy the cluster URL from the connection strings displayed.
4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Redshift Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

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

Visualize Live Redshift Data from Looker Studio

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Cloud from Looker Studio to create a new Redshift 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. Redshift1) and click Next
5. Select a Table (e.g. Orders) 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 Redshift Data from Cloud Applications

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

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