Use ChatGPT to Talk to Your Amazon Athena Data via CData Connect AI

ChatGPT is an AI chatbot developed by OpenAI, launched in November 2022. Based on large language models (LLMs), it enables users to refine and steer conversations through natural language processing. ChatGPT's developer mode, available to Plus and Pro subscribers, provides full Model Context Protocol (MCP) support for connecting to external data sources and tools.

CData Connect AI offers a dedicated cloud-to-cloud interface for connecting to Amazon Athena data. The CData Connect AI Remote MCP Server enables secure communication between ChatGPT and Amazon Athena. This allows you to ask questions and take actions on your Amazon Athena data using ChatGPT, all without the need for data replication to a natively supported database. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect AI efficiently channels all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, directly to Amazon Athena. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly deliver the requested Amazon Athena data.

Getting Started

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Step 1: Configure Amazon Athena Connectivity for ChatGPT

Connectivity to Amazon Athena from ChatGPT is made possible through CData Connect AI Remote MCP. To interact with Amazon Athena data from ChatGPT, we start by creating and configuring a Amazon Athena connection in CData Connect AI.

1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "Amazon Athena" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Amazon Athena.

   Authenticating to Amazon Athena

   To authorize Amazon Athena 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: Though you can connect as the AWS account administrator, it is recommended to use IAM user credentials to access AWS services.

   Obtaining the Access Key

   To obtain the credentials for an IAM user, follow the steps below:

   1. Sign into the IAM console.
   2. In the navigation pane, select Users.
   3. To create or manage the access keys for a user, select the user and then select the Security Credentials tab.

   To obtain the credentials for your AWS root account, follow the steps below:

   1. Sign into the AWS Management console with the credentials for your root account.
   2. Select your account name or number and select My Security Credentials in the menu that is displayed.
   3. Click Continue to Security Credentials and expand the Access Keys section to manage or create root account access keys.

   Authenticating from an EC2 Instance

   If you are using the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 from an EC2 Instance and have an IAM Role assigned to the instance, you can use the IAM Role to authenticate. To do so, set UseEC2Roles to true and leave AccessKey and SecretKey empty. The CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 will automatically obtain your IAM Role credentials and authenticate with them.

   Authenticating as an AWS Role

   In many situations it may be preferable to use an IAM role for authentication instead of the direct security credentials of an AWS root user. An AWS role may be used instead by specifying the RoleARN. This will cause the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 to attempt to retrieve credentials for the specified role. If you are connecting to AWS (instead of already being connected such as on an EC2 instance), you must additionally specify the AccessKey and SecretKey of an IAM user to assume the role for. Roles may not be used when specifying the AccessKey and SecretKey of an AWS root user.

   Authenticating with MFA

   For users and roles that require Multi-factor Authentication, specify the MFASerialNumber and MFAToken connection properties. This will cause the CData Data Provider for Amazon Athena 2018 to submit the MFA credentials in a request to retrieve temporary authentication credentials. Note that the duration of the temporary credentials may be controlled via the TemporaryTokenDuration (default 3600 seconds).

   Connecting to Amazon Athena

   In addition to the AccessKey and SecretKey properties, specify Database, S3StagingDirectory and Region. Set Region to the region where your Amazon Athena data is hosted. Set S3StagingDirectory to a folder in S3 where you would like to store the results of queries.

   If Database is not set in the connection, the data provider connects to the default database set in Amazon Athena.

   
4. Click Save & Test

With the connection configured, we are ready to connect to Amazon Athena data from ChatGPT.

Step 2: Connect ChatGPT to CData Connect AI

Follow these steps to add a CData Connect AI connector in ChatGPT:

1. Sign in to ChatGPT with a Plus or Pro subscription.
2. Navigate to Settings > Connectors.
3. Under the "Advanced settings" section, toggle on Developer mode.
4. Once developer mode is enabled, return to the Connectors page and click Create.
5. Enter a name for the connector (such as Connect AI MCP).
6. In the Remote MCP server URL field, enter:

   https://mcp.cloud.cdata.com/mcp

7. Set Authentication to "OAuth."
8. Check I trust this application and click Create
9. You will be redirected to CData Connect AI's OAuth authorization page. Sign in with your Connect AI credentials.
10. Review the permissions requested and click Authorize to grant ChatGPT access to your Connect AI resources.
11. After successful authorization, you will be redirected back to ChatGPT.
12. The Connect AI MCP Server will now appear in your available connectors list where you can manage the connector and enable/disable actions (tools).

Step 3: Explore Live Amazon Athena Data with ChatGPT

1. Start a new conversation in ChatGPT.
2. In the tool picker, enable "Developer Mode."
3. Enable your Connect AI MCP Sever.
4. You can now start exploring your data with natural language prompts. ChatGPT will use the Connect AI MCP server to query your live Amazon Athena data. Example prompts:
   • "Show me all customers from the last 30 days"
   • "What are my top performing products?"
   • "Analyze sales trends for this quarter"
   • "List all active projects and their current status"
   Refer to CData's prompt library for more prompt ideas.
5. ChatGPT will translate your natural language queries into SQL and execute them against your Amazon Athena data through the Connect AI MCP server.

IMPORTANT: ChatGPT's developer mode provides full read/write MCP access. Be cautious when allowing write operations to your Amazon Athena data. Always review and confirm any data modifications before allowing them to proceed.

NOTE: Developer mode is in beta and only available to ChatGPT Plus and Pro subscribers. Refer to OpenAI's documentation for the latest setup information.

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