How to connect PolyBase to Jira Service Desk

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 Jira Service Desk, you get access to your Jira Service Desk data directly alongside your SQL Server data. This article describes creating an external data source and external tables to grant access to live Jira Service Desk 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 Jira Service Desk data using PolyBase due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from SQL Server to Jira Service Desk, the driver pushes down supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Jira Service Desk 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 Jira Service Desk data, using a single query to pull data from distributed sources.

Connect to Jira Service Desk

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 Jira Service Desk Sys is created automatically).

You can establish a connection to any Jira Service Desk Cloud account or Server instance.

Connecting with a Cloud Account

To connect to a Cloud account, you'll first need to retrieve an APIToken. To generate one, log in to your Atlassian account and navigate to API tokens > Create API token. The generated token will be displayed.

Supply the following to connect to data:

• User: Set this to the username of the authenticating user.
• APIToken: Set this to the API token found previously.

Connecting with a Service Account

To authenticate with a service account, you will need to supply the following connection properties:

• User: Set this to the username of the authenticating user.
• Password: Set this to the password of the authenticating user.
• URL: Set this to the URL associated with your JIRA Service Desk endpoint. For example, https://yoursitename.atlassian.net.

Note: Password has been deprecated for connecting to a Cloud Account and is now used only to connect to a Server Instance.

Accessing Custom Fields

By default, the connector only surfaces system fields. To access the custom fields for Issues, set IncludeCustomFields.

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

Create an External Data Source for Jira Service Desk 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 Jira Service Desk data.

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

Create an External Data Source for Jira Service Desk

Execute a CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE SQL command to create an external data source for Jira Service Desk with PolyBase:

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

For Jira Service Desk, 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_jiraservicedesk_source
WITH ( 
  LOCATION = 'odbc://SERVER_URL',
  CONNECTION_OPTIONS = 'DSN=CData Jira Service Desk Sys',
  -- PUSHDOWN = ON | OFF,
  CREDENTIAL = jiraservicedesk_creds
);

Create External Tables for Jira Service Desk

After creating the external data source, use CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE statements to link to Jira Service Desk data from your SQL Server instance. The table column definitions must match those exposed by the CData ODBC Driver for Jira Service Desk. 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 Jira Service Desk Requests would look similar to the following:

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE Requests(
  RequestId [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  ReporterName [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  ...
) WITH ( 
  LOCATION='Requests',
  DATA_SOURCE=cdata_jiraservicedesk_source
);

Having created external tables for Jira Service Desk 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 Jira Service Desk, freeing up local resources and computing power. Download a free, 30-day trial of the ODBC Driver for Jira Service Desk and start working with live Jira Service Desk data alongside your SQL Server data today.