Create Datasets from Amazon Athena in Domo Workbench and Build Visualizations of Amazon Athena Data in Domo

Domo helps you manage, analyze, and share data across your entire organization, enabling decision makers to identify and act on strategic opportunities. Domo Workbench provides a secure, client-side solution for uploading your on-premise data to Domo. The CData ODBC Driver for Amazon Athena links Domo Workbench to operational Amazon Athena data. You can build datasets from Amazon Athena data using standard SQL queries in Workbench and then create real-time visualizations of Amazon Athena data in the Domo service.

The CData ODBC Drivers offer unmatched performance for interacting with live Amazon Athena data in Domo due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from Domo to Amazon Athena, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Amazon Athena and utilizes the embedded SQL Engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. With built-in dynamic metadata querying, you can visualize and analyze Amazon Athena data using native Domo data types.

Connect to Amazon Athena as an ODBC Data Source

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.

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.

When you configure the DSN, you may also want to set the Max Rows connection property. This will limit the number of rows returned, which is especially helpful for improving performance when designing reports and visualizations.

After creating a DSN, you will need to create a dataset for Amazon Athena in Domo Workbench using the Amazon Athena DSN and build a visualization in the Domo service based on the dataset.

Build a Dataset for Amazon Athena Data

You can follow the steps below to build a dataset based on a table in Amazon Athena in Domo Workbench using the CData ODBC Driver for Amazon Athena.

1. Open Domo Workbench and, if you have not already, add your Domo service server to Workbench. In the Accounts submenu, click Add New, type in the server address (i.e., domain.domo.com) and click through the wizard to authenticate.
2. In the DataSet Jobs submenu, click Add New.
3. Name the dataset job (i.e., ODBC Amazon Athena Customers), select ODBC Connection Provider as the transport method, and click through the wizard.
4. In the newly created DataSet Job, navigate to Source and click to configure the settings.
5. Select System DSN for the Connection Type.
6. Select the previously configured DSN (CData AmazonAthena Sys) for the System DSN.
7. Click to validate the configuration.
8. Below the settings, set the Query to a SQL query: SELECT * FROM Customers NOTE: By connecting to Amazon Athena data using an ODBC driver, you simply need to know SQL in order to get your data, circumventing the need to know Amazon Athena-specific APIs or protocols.
9. Click preview.
10. Check over the generated schema, add any transformations, then save and run the dataset job.

With the dataset job run, the dataset will be accessible from the Domo service, allowing you to build visualizations, reports, and more based on Amazon Athena data.

Create Data Visualizations

With the DataSet Job saved and run in Domo Workbench, we are ready to build visualizations of the Amazon Athena data in the Domo service.

1. Navigate to the Data Center.
2. In the data warehouse, select the ODBC data source and drill down to our new dataset.
3. With the dataset selected, choose to create a visualization.
4. In the new card:
   • Drag a Dimension to the X Value.
   • Drag a Measure to the Y Value.
   • Choose a Visualization.

With the CData ODBC Driver for Amazon Athena, you can build custom datasets based on Amazon Athena data using only SQL in Domo Workbench and then build and share visualizations and reports through the Domo service.