Connect to FTP Data as an External Source in Dremio

The CData JDBC Driver for FTP implements JDBC Standards and allows various applications, including Dremio, to work with live FTP 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 FTP data as a part of your enterprise data lake. This article describes how to connect to FTP data from Dremio as an External Source.

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

Prerequisites

This article assumes you are utilizing Docker to run Dremio. You can create a Docker container with the Dremio service using a command similar to the follow:

docker run -d --name dremio -p 9047:9047 -p 31010:31010 dremio/dremio-oss

Where dremio is the name of the container, 9047 is the container's port for the Dremio web interface and 31010 is the port that maps to the Dremio query service. dremio/dremio-oss specifies the image to use.

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

NOTE: The CData ARP Connectors are build to be compiled with Java 11. Be sure to install Java 11 and use the correct version. You can update your Java version using a command similar to the following:

sudo update-alternatives --config java

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 FTP to %DREMIO_HOME%/jars/3rdparty. You can use commands similar to the following:

ARP Connector

docker cp PATH\TO\dremio-ftp-plugin-{DREMIO_VERSION}.jar dremio_image_name:/opt/dremio/jars/

JDBC Driver for FTP

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

Connecting to FTP

FTP will now appear as an External Source option in Dremio. The ARP Connector built uses a JDBC URL to connect to FTP 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 FTP JDBC Driver. Double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command line.

java -jar cdata.jdbc.ftp.jar

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

To connect to FTP or SFTP servers, specify at least RemoteHost and FileProtocol. Specify the port with RemotePort.

Set User and Password to perform Basic authentication. Set SSHAuthMode to use SSH authentication. See the Getting Started section of the data provider help documentation for more information on authenticating via SSH.

Set SSLMode and SSLServerCert to secure connections with SSL.

The data provider lists the tables based on the available folders in your FTP server. Set the following connection properties to control the relational view of the file system:

• RemotePath: Set this to the current working directory.
• TableDepth: Set this to control the depth of folders to list as views.
• FileRetrievalDepth: Set this to retrieve and list files recursively from the root table.

Stored Procedures are available to download files, upload files, and send protocol commands. See the Data Model chapter of the FTP data provider documentation for more information.

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:ftp:RTK=5246...;RemoteHost=MyFTPServer;

Access FTP as an External Source

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

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

More Information & Free Trial

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