Automated Continuous SQL Server Replication to Amazon S3

Always-on applications rely on automatic failover capabilities and real-time data access. CData Sync integrates live SQL Server data into your Amazon S3 instance, allowing you to consolidate all of your data into a single location for archiving, reporting, analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence and more.

Configure Amazon S3 as a Replication Destination

Using CData Sync, you can replicate SQL Server data to Amazon S3. To add a replication destination, navigate to the Connections tab.

1. Click Add Connection.
2. Select Amazon S3 as a destination.

3. Enter the necessary connection properties. To connect to Amazon S3, 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.

   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.

4. Click Test Connection to ensure that the connection is configured properly.
5. Click Save Changes.

Configure the SQL Server Connection

You can configure a connection to SQL Server from the Connections tab. To add a connection to your SQL Server account, navigate to the Connections tab.

1. Click Add Connection.
2. Select a source (SQL Server).
3. Configure the connection properties.
   
   

   Connecting to Microsoft SQL Server

   Connect to Microsoft SQL Server using the following properties:

   • Server: The name of the server running SQL Server.
   • User: The username provided for authentication with SQL Server.
   • Password: The password associated with the authenticating user.
   • Database: The name of the SQL Server database.

   Connecting to Azure SQL Server and Azure Data Warehouse

   You can authenticate to Azure SQL Server or Azure Data Warehouse by setting the following connection properties:

   • Server: The server running Azure. You can find this by logging into the Azure portal and navigating to "SQL databases" (or "SQL data warehouses") -> "Select your database" -> "Overview" -> "Server name."
   • User: The name of the user authenticating to Azure.
   • Password: The password associated with the authenticating user.
   • Database: The name of the database, as seen in the Azure portal on the SQL databases (or SQL warehouses) page.
4. Click Connect to ensure that the connection is configured properly.
5. Click Save Changes.

Configure Replication Queries

CData Sync enables you to control replication with a point-and-click interface and with SQL queries. For each replication you wish to configure, navigate to the Jobs tab and click Add Job. Select the Source and Destination for your replication.

Replicate Entire Tables

To replicate an entire table, click Add Tables in the Tables section, choose the table(s) you wish to replicate, and click Add Selected Tables.

Customize Your Replication

You can use the Columns and Query tabs of a task to customize your replication. The Columns tab allows you to specify which columns to replicate, rename the columns at the destination, and even perform operations on the source data before replicating. The Query tab allows you to add filters, grouping, and sorting to the replication.

Schedule Your Replication

In the Schedule section, you can schedule a job to run automatically, configuring the job to run after specified intervals ranging from once every 10 minutes to once every month.

Once you have configured the replication job, click Save Changes. You can configure any number of jobs to manage the replication of your SQL Server data to Amazon S3.