Query Amazon Athena Data in DataGrip



Create a Data Source for Amazon Athena in DataGrip and use SQL to query live Amazon Athena data.

DataGrip is a database IDE that allows SQL developers to query, create, and manage databases. When paired with the CData JDBC Driver for Amazon Athena, DataGrip can work with live Amazon Athena data. This article shows how to establish a connection to Amazon Athena data in DataGrip and use the table editor to load Amazon Athena data.

About Amazon Athena Data Integration

CData provides the easiest way to access and integrate live data from Amazon Athena. Customers use CData connectivity to:

  • Authenticate securely using a variety of methods, including IAM credentials, access keys, and Instance Profiles, catering to diverse security needs and simplifying the authentication process.
  • Streamline their setup and quickly resolve issue with detailed error messaging.
  • Enhance performance and minimize strain on client resources with server-side query execution.

Users frequently integrate Athena with analytics tools like Tableau, Power BI, and Excel for in-depth analytics from their preferred tools.

To learn more about unique Amazon Athena use cases with CData, check out our blog post: https://www.cdata.com/blog/amazon-athena-use-cases.


Getting Started


Create a New Driver Definition for Amazon Athena

The steps below describe how to create a new Data Source in DataGrip for Amazon Athena.

  1. In DataGrip, click File -> New > Project and name the project
  2. In the Database Explorer, click the plus icon () and select Driver.
  3. In the Driver tab:
    • Set Name to a user-friendly name (e.g. "CData Amazon Athena Driver")
    • Set Driver Files to the appropriate JAR file. To add the file, click the plus (), select "Add Files," navigate to the "lib" folder in the driver's installation directory and select the JAR file (e.g. cdata.jdbc.amazonathena.jar).
    • Set Class to cdata.jdbc.amazonathena.AmazonAthena.jar
    Additionally, in the advanced tab you can change driver properties and some other settings like VM Options, VM environment, VM home path, DBMS, etc
    • For most cases, change the DBMS type to "Unknown" in Expert options to avoid native SQL Server queries (Transact-SQL), which might result in an invalid function error
  4. Click "Apply" then "OK" to save the Connection

Configure a Connection to Amazon Athena

  1. Once the connection is saved, click the plus (), then "Data Source" then "CData Amazon Athena Driver" to create a new Amazon Athena Data Source.
  2. In the new window, configure the connection to Amazon Athena with a JDBC URL.

    Built-in Connection String Designer

    For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Amazon Athena JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

    java -jar cdata.jdbc.amazonathena.jar

    Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

    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.

  3. Set URL to the connection string, e.g., jdbc:amazonathena:AWSAccessKey='a123';AWSSecretKey='s123';AWSRegion='IRELAND';Database='sampledb';S3StagingDirectory='s3://bucket/staging/';
  4. Click "Apply" and "OK" to save the connection string

At this point, you will see the data source in the Data Explorer.

Execute SQL Queries Against Amazon Athena

To browse through the Amazon Athena entities (available as tables) accessible through the JDBC Driver, expand the Data Source.

To execute queries, right click on any table and select "New" -> "Query Console."

In the Console, write the SQL query you wish to execute. For example: SELECT Name, TotalDue FROM Customers

Download a free, 30-day trial of the CData JDBC Driver for Amazon Athena and start working with your live Amazon Athena data in DataGrip. Reach out to our Support Team if you have any questions.

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