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Get the Report →Create API-Connected Dashboards in Grafana
Connect to API Data via CData Connect Cloud in Grafana and create custom business dashboards with real-time access to API data.
Grafana is an open-source platform that allows users to analyze, monitor, and visualize telemetry from various data sources. When combined with CData Connect Cloud, you gain immediate access to API data for business dashboards. This article outlines the process of connecting to your API using Connect Cloud and creating a basic dashboard from API data within Grafana.
CData Connect Cloud offers a pure SQL Server, cloud-to-cloud interface for your API, enabling the creation of dashboards directly from live API data within Grafana, all without the need for data replication to a native database. As you build visualizations, Grafana generates SQL queries to gather data. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect Cloud efficiently channels all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, directly to your API. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly deliver the requested API data.
Configure your API Connectivity for Grafana
Connectivity to your API from Grafana is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with API data from Grafana, we start by creating and configuring a your API connection.
- Log into Connect Cloud, click Connections and click Add Connection
- Select "API" from the Add Connection panel
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Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to your API.
To connect to your API, configure the following properties on the Global Settings page:
- In Authentication, select the Type and fill in the required properties
- In Headers, add the required HTTP headers for your API
- In Pagination, select the Type and fill in the required properties
After the configuring the global settings, navigate to the Tables to add tables. For each table you wish to add:
- Click "+ Add"
- Set the Name for the table
- Set Request URL to the API endpoint you wish to work with
- (Optional) In Parameters, add the required URL Parameters for your API endpoint
- (Optional) In Headers, add the required HTTP headers for the API endpoint
- In Table Data click " Configure"
- Review the response from the API and click "Next"
- Select which element to use as the Repeated Elements and which elements to use as Columns and click "Next"
- Preview the tabular model of the API response and click "Confirm"
- Click Create & Test
- Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add your API Connection page and update the User-based permissions.
Add a Personal Access Token
If you are connecting from a service, application, platform, or framework that does not support OAuth authentication, you can create a Personal Access Token (PAT) to use for authentication. Best practices would dictate that you create a separate PAT for each service, to maintain granularity of access.
- Click on your username at the top right of the Connect Cloud app and click User Profile.
- On the User Profile page, scroll down to the Personal Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
- Give your PAT a name and click Create.
- The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.
With the connection configured, you are ready to connect to API data from Grafana.
Visualize Live API Data in Grafana
To establish a connection from Grafana to the CData Connect Cloud Virtual SQL Server API, follow these steps.
- If you have not already done so, download and install Grafana for your operating system from the Grafana Website. Once installed, access Grafana at http://localhost:3000/.
- Log in to Grafana with your username and password for Grafana. If this is your first time logging in, the username is admin and the password is admin.
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On the navigation menu, click Connections > Add new connection. On this page, you can search for Microsoft SQL Server and select it as your data source.
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Select Microsoft SQL Server and click Add new data source.
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Enter a name for the new data source and then enter the following connection settings:
- Host: tds.cdata.com:14333
- Database: enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect Cloud data source you want to connect to (for example, API1).
- Username: enter your CData Connect Cloud username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect Cloud interface. For example, [email protected].
- Password: enter the PAT you previously generated.
- Click Save & Test. A Database Connect OK message appears when you have a successful connection established.
Create a Dashboard
Once you create the data source for your API, you can start building dashboards on API data. Start in the navigation menu and click Dashboards
- On the Dashboards page, click + Create dashboard, then click + Add visualization.
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This opens the Select data source window where you can select your created connection.
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After selecting your connection, you can choose the tables and columns that you want to query for your visualization. Then press Run Query to run the generated query.
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After running your query, the resulting data is populated above the query editor. Here you can select the visualization that you want to use to present your data on the dashboard panel.
- When you have finished editing your panel, you can click Save dashboard to save the changes made to your Dashboard.
To get live data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, try CData Connect Cloud today!