Analyze Google Spanner Data in Infragistics Reveal

Reveal is a data visualization solution provided by Infragistics and can be paired with the CData Connect Server and Google Spanner Connector to build dynamic dashboards from live Google Spanner data. The CData Connect Server creates a virtual database for Google Spanner and can be used to generate an OData API (natively consumable in Reveal) for Google Spanner. In this article, we walk through connecting to Google Spanner in Connect Server and connecting to Connect Server from Infragistics Reveal to create a simple dashboard.

Add a Connect Server User

Create a User to connect to Google Spanner from Reveal through Connect Server.

1. Click Users -> Add
2. Configure a User
3. Click Save Changes and make note of the Authtoken for the new user

Connect to Google Spanner from Connect Server

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

1. Open Connect Server and click Connections
2. Select "Google Spanner" from Available Data Sources
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Google Spanner.

   Google Spanner uses the OAuth authentication standard. To authenticate using OAuth, you can use the embedded credentials or register an app with Google.

   See the Getting Started guide in the CData driver documentation for more information.

4. Click Save Changes
5. Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions (SELECT is all that is required for Reveal).

Add Google Spanner OData Endpoints in Connect Server

After connecting to Google Spanner, create OData Endpoint for the desired table(s).

1. Click OData -> Tables -> Add Tables
2. Select the Google Spanner database
3. Select the table(s) you wish to work with and click Next
4. (Optional) Edit the resource to select specific fields and more
5. Save the settings

(Optional) Configure Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)

When accessing and connecting to multiple different domains from an application such as Ajax, there is a possibility of violating the limitations of cross-site scripting. In that case, configure the CORS settings in OData -> Settings.

• Enable cross-origin resource sharing (CORS): ON
• Allow all domains without '*': ON
• Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, PUT, POST, OPTIONS
• Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization

Save the changes to the settings.

Create a Dashboard in Reveal

With Connect Server configured, we can visualize Google Spanner data in Reveal.

1. Log into Reveal and click Dashboards -> New
2. Click Data Source -> OData Feed
3. Specify the Connect Server API endpoint URL (found in API -> Discovery -> Base URL), for example: CONNECT_SERVER_URL/api.rsc
4. Select Generic Credentials and specify the Connect Server username and authentication token
5. Select the entity you wish to visualize
6. Select fields and choose a chart type

More Information & Free Trial

At this point, you have created a simple dashboard from live Google Spanner data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Google Spanner (and more than 150 other sources), visit the Connect Server page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live Google Spanner data in tools that consume OData APIs.