Analyze Amazon Athena Data in SAP Analytics Cloud

SAP Analytics Cloud is a cloud-based business intelligence platform. CData Connect Cloud creates a pure, cloud-to-cloud connection to Amazon Athena and can be used to generate an OData API (natively supported in Analytics Cloud) for Amazon Athena. By pairing SAP Analytics Cloud with CData Connect Cloud, you get true cloud-to-cloud connectivity to all of your SaaS and cloud-based Big Data and NoSQL sources — no need to migrate your data or write your integrations. Simply connect to Connect Cloud as you would any other OData service and get instant, consolidated access to all of your data.

In this article, we walk through connecting to Amazon Athena from SAP Analytics Cloud (through CData Connect Cloud) to create a model and build a simple dashboard.

Connect to Amazon Athena from SAP Analytics Cloud

To work with live Amazon Athena data in SAP Analytics Cloud, we need to connect to Amazon Athena from Connect Cloud, provide user access to the connection, and create OData endpoints for the Amazon Athena data.

(Optional) Add a New Connect Cloud User

As needed, create Users to connect to Amazon Athena through Connect Cloud.

1. Navigate to the Users page and click Invite Users
2. Enter the new user's email address and click Send to invite the user
3. You can review and edit users from the Users page

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 Amazon Athena from Connect Cloud

CData Connect Cloud uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources.

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

   Authenticating to Amazon Athena

   To authorize Amazon Athena requests, 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.

   Obtaining the Access Key

   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.

   Authenticating from an EC2 Instance

   If you are using the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 from an EC2 Instance and have an IAM Role assigned to the instance, you can use the IAM Role to authenticate. To do so, set UseEC2Roles to true and leave AccessKey and SecretKey empty. The CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 will automatically obtain your IAM Role credentials and authenticate with them.

   Authenticating as an AWS Role

   In many situations it may be preferable to use an IAM role for authentication instead of the direct security credentials of an AWS root user. An AWS role may be used instead by specifying the RoleARN. This will cause the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 to attempt to retrieve credentials for the specified role. If you are connecting to AWS (instead of already being connected such as on an EC2 instance), you must additionally specify the AccessKey and SecretKey of an IAM user to assume the role for. Roles may not be used when specifying the AccessKey and SecretKey of an AWS root user.

   Authenticating with MFA

   For users and roles that require Multi-factor Authentication, specify the MFASerialNumber and MFAToken connection properties. This will cause the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 to submit the MFA credentials in a request to retrieve temporary authentication credentials. Note that the duration of the temporary credentials may be controlled via the TemporaryTokenDuration (default 3600 seconds).

   Connecting to Amazon Athena

   In addition to the AccessKey and SecretKey properties, specify Database, S3StagingDirectory and Region. Set Region to the region where your Amazon Athena data is hosted. Set S3StagingDirectory to a folder in S3 where you would like to store the results of queries.

   If Database is not set in the connection, the data provider connects to the default database set in Amazon Athena.

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

Add Amazon Athena OData Endpoints in Connect Cloud

After connecting to Amazon Athena, create OData Endpoints for the desired table(s).

1. Navigate to the OData page and click Add to create new OData endpoints
2. Select the Amazon Athena connection (e.g. AmazonAthena1) and click Next
3. Select the table(s) you wish to work with and click Confirm

With the connection and OData endpoints configured, you are ready to connect to Amazon Athena data from SAP Analytics Cloud.

Create a Model of Amazon Athena Data in SAP Analytics Cloud

With the connection to Amazon Athena configured and the OData endpoint(s) created, we can create a Model for Amazon Athena data in SAP Analytics Cloud.

1. Log into your Analytics Cloud instance and click Create -> Model from the menu.
2. Choose "Get data from a datasource" and select "OData Services"
3. Choose an existing connection to your Connect Cloud OData or Create a new one:
   • Set Connection Name
   • Set Data Service URL to the Base URL for your OData API: https://cloud.cdata.com/api/odata/service
   • Set Authentication Type to Basic Authentication
   • Set User Name to the Connect Cloud user (e.g. user@mydomain.com)
   • Set Password to the PAT for the above user
4. Choose "Create a new query" and click Next
5. Name the Execute, select an OData endpoint (like Customers) and click Next
6. Drag the columns you wish to work with into the Selected Data workspace and click Create
7. At this point, a Draft Data source is created; click the draft to finalize the model
8. Perform any transformations, including creating calculated dimensions, location dimensions, and combining data sources, then click Create Model
9. Name your model and click OK

Build a Dashboard in SAP Analytics Cloud

With the model created, you are ready to create a dashboard in SAP Analytics Cloud based on Amazon Athena data.

1. From the menu, click Create -> Story
2. Click on SAP Analytics Template (this article uses the "Dashboard" template)
3. Choose a layout and click Apply
4. From the More menu, select a visualization to insert (Chart)
5. Select a model to visualize
6. Select a structure and the required Measures and Dimensions
7. Save the store

More Information & Free Trial

Now, you have created a simple but powerful dashboard from live Amazon Athena data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Amazon Athena (and more than 100 other data sources), visit the Connect Cloud page. Sign up for a free trial and start working with live Amazon Athena data in SAP Analytics Cloud.