How to connect PolyBase to YouTube Analytics

PolyBase for SQL Server allows you to query external data by using the same Transact-SQL syntax used to query a database table. When paired with the CData ODBC Driver for YouTube Analytics, you get access to your YouTube Analytics data directly alongside your SQL Server data. This article describes creating an external data source and external tables to grant access to live YouTube Analytics data using T-SQL queries.

NOTE: PolyBase is only available on SQL Server 19 and above, and only for Standard SQL Server.

The CData ODBC drivers offer unmatched performance for interacting with live YouTube Analytics data using PolyBase due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from SQL Server to YouTube Analytics, the driver pushes down supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to YouTube Analytics and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. And with PolyBase, you can also join SQL Server data with YouTube Analytics data, using a single query to pull data from distributed sources.

Connect to YouTube Analytics

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs. To create an external data source in SQL Server using PolyBase, configure a System DSN (CData YouTube Analytics Sys is created automatically).

YouTube Analytics uses the OAuth authentication standard. You can use the embedded CData OAuth credentials or you can register an application with Google to obtain your own.

In addition to the OAuth values, to access YouTube Analytics data set ChannelId to the Id of a YouTube channel. You can obtain the channel Id in the advanced account settings for your channel. If not specified, the channel of the currently authenticated user will be used.

If you want to generate content owner reports, specify the ContentOwnerId property. This is the Id of the copyright holder for content in YouTube's rights management system. The content owner is the person or organization that claims videos and sets their monetization policy.

Click "Test Connection" to ensure that the DSN is connected to YouTube Analytics properly. Navigate to the Tables tab to review the table definitions for YouTube Analytics.

Create an External Data Source for YouTube Analytics Data

After configuring the connection, you need to create a master encryption key and a credential database for the external data source.

Creating a Master Encryption Key

Execute the following SQL command to create a new master key, 'ENCRYPTION,' to encrypt the credentials for the external data source.

CREATE MASTER KEY ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = 'password';

Creating a Credential Database

Execute the following SQL command to create credentials for the external data source connected to YouTube Analytics data.

NOTE: Since YouTube Analytics does not require a User or Password to authenticate, you may use whatever values you wish for IDENTITY and SECRET.

CREATE DATABASE SCOPED CREDENTIAL youtubeanalytics_creds
WITH IDENTITY = 'username', SECRET = 'password';

Create an External Data Source for YouTube Analytics

Execute a CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE SQL command to create an external data source for YouTube Analytics with PolyBase:

• Set the LOCATION parameter , using the DSN and credentials configured earlier.

For YouTube Analytics, set SERVERNAME to the URL or address for your server (e.g. 'localhost' or '127.0.0.1' for local servers; the remote URL for remote servers). Leave PORT empty. PUSHDOWN is set to ON by default, meaning the ODBC Driver can leverage server-side processing for complex queries.

CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE cdata_youtubeanalytics_source
WITH ( 
  LOCATION = 'odbc://SERVER_URL',
  CONNECTION_OPTIONS = 'DSN=CData YouTube Analytics Sys',
  -- PUSHDOWN = ON | OFF,
  CREDENTIAL = youtubeanalytics_creds
);

Create External Tables for YouTube Analytics

After creating the external data source, use CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE statements to link to YouTube Analytics data from your SQL Server instance. The table column definitions must match those exposed by the CData ODBC Driver for YouTube Analytics. You can refer to the Tables tab of the DSN Configuration Wizard to see the table definition.

Sample CREATE TABLE Statement

The statement to create an external table based on a YouTube Analytics Groups would look similar to the following:

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE Groups(
  Snippet_Title [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  ContentDetails_ItemCount [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  ...
) WITH ( 
  LOCATION='Groups',
  DATA_SOURCE=cdata_youtubeanalytics_source
);

Having created external tables for YouTube Analytics in your SQL Server instance, you are now able to query local and remote data simultaneously. Thanks to built-in query processing in the CData ODBC Driver, you know that as much query processing as possible is being pushed to YouTube Analytics, freeing up local resources and computing power. Download a free, 30-day trial of the ODBC Driver for YouTube Analytics and start working with live YouTube Analytics data alongside your SQL Server data today.