Connect to Excel Data in as an External Source in Dremio

The CData JDBC Driver for Microsoft Excel implements JDBC Standards and allows various applications, including Dremio, to work with live Excel data. Dremio is a data lakehouse platform designed to empower self-service, interactive analytics on the data lake. With the CData JDBC Driver, you can include live Excel data as a part of your enterprise data lake. This article describes how to connect to Excel data from Dremio as an External Source.

The CData JDBC Driver enables high-speed access to live Excel data in Dremio. Once you install the driver, authenticate with Excel and gain immediate access to Excel data within your data lake. By surfacing Excel data using native data types and handling complex filters, aggregations, & other operations automatically, the CData JDBC Driver grants seamless access to Excel data.

Build the ARP Connector

To use the CData JDBC Driver in Dremio, you need to build an Advanced Relation Pushdown (ARP) Connector. You can view the source code for the Connector on GitHub or download the ZIP file (GitHub.com) directly. Once you copy or extract the files, run the following command from the root directory of the connector (the directory containing the pom.xml file) to build the connector.

mvn clean install

Once the JAR file for the connector is built (in the target directory), you are ready to copy the ARP connector and JDBC Driver to your Dremio instance.

Installing the Connector and JDBC Driver

Install the ARP Connector to %DREMIO_HOME%/jars/ and the JDBC Driver for Excel to %DREMIO_HOME%/jars/3rdparty. You can use commands similar to the following:

ARP Connector

docker cp PATH\TO\dremio-excel-plugin-20.0.0.jar dremio_image_name:/opt/dremio/jars/

JDBC Driver for Excel

docker cp PATH\TO\cdata.jdbc.excel.jar dremio_image_name:/opt/dremio/jars/3rdparty/

Connecting to Excel

Excel will now appear as an External Source option in Dremio. The ARP Connector built uses a JDBC URL to connect to Excel data. The JDBC Driver has a built-in connection string designer that you can use (see below).

Built-in Connection String Designer

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

java -jar cdata.jdbc.excel.jar

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

The ExcelFile, under the Authentication section, must be set to a valid Excel File.

NOTE: To use the JDBC Driver in Dremio, you will need a license (full or trial) and a Runtime Key (RTK). For more information on obtaining this license (or a trial), contact our sales team.

Add the Runtime Key (RTK) to the JDBC URL. You will end up with a JDBC URL similar to the following:

jdbc:excel:RTK=5246...;Excel File='C:/MyExcelWorkbooks/SampleWorkbook.xlsx';

Access Excel as an External Source

To add Excel as an External Source, click to add a new source and select Excel. Copy the JDBC URL and paste it into the New Excel Source wizard.

Save the connection and you are ready to query live Excel data in Dremio, easily incorporating Excel data into your data lake.

More Information & Free Trial

Using the CData JDBC Driver for Microsoft Excel in Dremio, you can incorporate live Excel data into your data lake. Check out our CData JDBC Driver for Microsoft Excel page for more information about connecting to Excel. Download a free, 30 day trial of the CData JDBC Driver for Microsoft Excel and get started today.