Integrate Dify with Live Elasticsearch Data via CData Connect AI

Anusha M B
Anusha M B
Technical Marketing Engineer
Use the CData Connect AI Remote MCP Server to enable Dify agents and workflows to securely access and query live Elasticsearch data.

Dify is an open source platform for building production-ready agentic workflows, chatbots, and other LLM applications. It includes built-in, two-way support for the model context protocol (MCP), allowing you to register remote MCP servers as tools in the platform to add external data sources and give your agents access to live data.

By integrating Dify with CData Connect AI through the built-in MCP Server, Dify gains governed, real-time access to live Elasticsearch data. You can list catalogs, explore schemas, and query records from Elasticsearch data using natural language prompts, with all data access running securely against authorized sources.

This article explains how to configure Elasticsearch connectivity in Connect AI, generate the required personal access token, register the Connect AI MCP Server as a tool in Dify, add it to an agent application, and verify the integration by querying live Elasticsearch data from Dify.

About Elasticsearch Data Integration

Accessing and integrating live data from Elasticsearch has never been easier with CData. Customers rely on CData connectivity to:

  • Access both the SQL endpoints and REST endpoints, optimizing connectivity and offering more options when it comes to reading and writing Elasticsearch data.
  • Connect to virtually every Elasticsearch instance starting with v2.2 and Open Source Elasticsearch subscriptions.
  • Always receive a relevance score for the query results without explicitly requiring the SCORE() function, simplifying access from 3rd party tools and easily seeing how the query results rank in text relevance.
  • Search through multiple indices, relying on Elasticsearch to manage and process the query and results instead of the client machine.

Users frequently integrate Elasticsearch data with analytics tools such as Crystal Reports, Power BI, and Excel, and leverage our tools to enable a single, federated access layer to all of their data sources, including Elasticsearch.

For more information on CData's Elasticsearch solutions, check out our Knowledge Base article: CData Elasticsearch Driver Features & Differentiators.


Getting Started


Step 1: Configure Elasticsearch connectivity for Dify

Connectivity to Elasticsearch from Dify is made possible through Connect AI's Remote MCP Server. To interact with Elasticsearch data from Dify, start by creating and configuring a Elasticsearch connection in Connect AI.

  1. Log into Connect AI, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
    2. Adding a connection in Connect AI
  2. Select Elasticsearch from the Add Connection panel
    3. Selecting data source
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Elasticsearch.

    Set the Server and Port connection properties to connect. To authenticate, set the User and Password properties, PKI (public key infrastructure) properties, or both. To use PKI, set the SSLClientCert, SSLClientCertType, SSLClientCertSubject, and SSLClientCertPassword properties.

    The data provider uses X-Pack Security for TLS/SSL and authentication. To connect over TLS/SSL, prefix the Server value with 'https://'. Note: TLS/SSL and client authentication must be enabled on X-Pack to use PKI.

    Once the data provider is connected, X-Pack will then perform user authentication and grant role permissions based on the realms you have configured.

    Configuring a connection (Salesforce is shown)
  4. Click Save & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab and update user-based permissions
    6. Updating permissions

Add a Personal Access Token

A Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect AI from Dify. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each integration to maintain granular access control.

  1. Click the gear icon () at the top right of the Connect AI app to open Settings
  2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT
  3. Give the PAT a descriptive name and click Create
    4. Creating a new PAT
  4. Copy the token when displayed and store it securely. It will not be shown again

With the Elasticsearch connection configured and a PAT generated, Dify can now connect to Elasticsearch data through Connect AI.

Step 2: Register the Connect AI MCP Server in Dify

Next, register the Connect AI Remote MCP Server as a tool in Dify so your agents and workflows can discover and call live data tools through Connect AI.

  1. Log into Dify, or open your self-hosted Dify instance (version 1.6.0 or later, which includes built-in MCP support)
  2. Navigate to the Integrations page, select Tools and click MCP tab
    3. Navigate to MCP
  3. Click Add MCP Server (HTTP) and enter the following details:
    • Server URL: https://mcp.cloud.cdata.com/mcp
    • Name Icon: Give a descriptive name, for example, CData Connect AI
    • Server Identifier: A unique identifier, for example, cdata-connect-ai
    • Headers: Add an Authorization header with the value Basic your_base64_encoded_email_PAT

    Note: Dify will use Basic authentication with Connect AI. Combine your Connect AI user email and the PAT you created earlier in the format email:PAT, base64 encode the combined string, and prefix it with Basic.

  4. Click Add & Authorize. Dify connects to the Connect AI MCP Server and lists the available tools Adding the Connect AI MCP Server in Dify

With the MCP server registered, the Connect AI tools are available to any agent application or workflow in your Dify workspace.

Step 3: Query live Elasticsearch data from Dify

With the integration complete, build an agent application in Dify and interact with live Elasticsearch data through natural language prompts.

  1. From the Dify Studio page, click Create from Blank and select Agent as the application type Viewing the Connect AI MCP tools in Dify
  2. In the agent configuration, click Add under the Tools section and select the Connect AI MCP tools registered in Step 2 Adding the Connect AI MCP tools to a Dify agent
  3. Select an LLM provider and model for the agent so it can interpret prompts and call MCP tools
  4. In the preview panel, type a prompt in the chat input, for example:
    • Use the cdata-connect-ai tools to list all available catalogs
    • Show the available schemas and tables for Elasticsearch
    • Query the top 5 records from a table in Elasticsearch
  5. The Dify agent calls the Connect AI MCP Server and returns live results from Elasticsearch data Querying live data from a Dify agent

At this point, Dify communicates with the Connect AI MCP Server and retrieves live Elasticsearch data through remote MCP tools directly from your agentic workflows.

Get started with CData Connect AI

To access hundreds of SaaS, big data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, try CData Connect AI today. Download a free 14-day trial of CData Connect AI, and our Support Team is available to help with any questions you have.

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