Visualize Live Amazon S3 Data in Power BI (via CData Connect Cloud)

Power BI transforms your company's data into rich visuals for you to collect and organize so you can focus on what matters to you. When paired with CData Connect Cloud, you get access to Amazon S3 data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to use CData Connect to create a live connection to Amazon S3, connect to Amazon S3 data from Power BI and then create reports on Amazon S3 data in Power BI.

Configure Amazon S3 Connectivity for Power BI

Connectivity to Amazon S3 from Power BI is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with Amazon S3 data from Power BI, we start by creating and configuring a Amazon S3 connection.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
2. Select "Amazon S3" from the Add Connection panel
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Amazon S3.

   To authorize Amazon S3 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: You can connect as the AWS account administrator, but it is recommended to use IAM user credentials to access AWS services.

   For information on obtaining the credentials and other authentication methods, refer to the Getting Started section of the Help documentation.

4. Click Create & Test
5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add Amazon S3 Connection page and update the User-based permissions.

With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to Amazon S3 data from Power BI.

Query Amazon S3 Tables

Follow the steps below to build a query to pull Amazon S3 data into the report:

1. Open Power BI Desktop and click Get Data -> Online Services -> CData Connect Cloud and click "Connect"
2. Click "Sign in" and authenticate with your CData Connect Cloud account
3. After signing in, click "Connect"
4. Select tables in the Navigator dialog
5. Click Load to establish the connection to your Amazon S3 data from Power BI

Create Amazon S3 Data Visualizations

After connecting to the data into Power BI, you can create data visualizations in the Report view by dragging fields from the Fields pane onto the canvas. Select the dimensions and measures you wish to visualize along with the chart type.

Click Refresh to synchronize your report with any changes to the data.

Live Access to Amazon S3 Data from Data Applications

With CData Connect Cloud you have a direct connection to Amazon S3 data from Power BI. You can import more data, create new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating Amazon S3 data.

To get SQL data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources (including Amazon S3) directly from your on-premise BI, reporting, ETL and other data applications, visit the CData Connect page and start a free trial.