How to connect PolyBase to TaxJar

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

Connect to TaxJar

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 TaxJar Sys is created automatically).

To authenticate to the TaxJar API, you will need to first obtain the API Key from the TaxJar UI.

NOTE: the API is available only for Professional and Premium TaxJar plans.

If you already have a Professional or Premium plan you can find the API Key by logging in the TaxJar UI and navigating to Account -> TaxJar API. After obtaining the API Key, you can set it in the APIKey connection property.

Additional Notes

• By default, the CData connector will retrieve data of the last 3 months in cases where the entity support date range filtering. You can set StartDate to specify the minimum creation date of the data retrieved.
• If the API Key has been created for a sandbox API account please set UseSandbox to true, but not all endpoints will work as expected. For more information, refer to the TaxJar developer documentation.

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

Create an External Data Source for TaxJar 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 TaxJar data.

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

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

Create an External Data Source for TaxJar

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

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

For TaxJar, 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_taxjar_source
WITH ( 
  LOCATION = 'odbc://SERVER_URL',
  CONNECTION_OPTIONS = 'DSN=CData TaxJar Sys',
  -- PUSHDOWN = ON | OFF,
  CREDENTIAL = taxjar_creds
);

Create External Tables for TaxJar

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

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE Orders(
  TransactionID [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  UserID [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  ...
) WITH ( 
  LOCATION='Orders',
  DATA_SOURCE=cdata_taxjar_source
);

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