Build Redshift-Connected Dashboards in Redash

Redash lets you connect and query your data sources, build dashboards to visualize data and share them with your company. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get instant, cloud-to-cloud access to Redshift data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for Redshift and build visualizations from Redshift data in Redash.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for Redshift, allowing you to easily build reports from live Redshift data in Redash — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, Redash generates SQL queries to gather data. Using optimized data processing out of the box, CData Connect Server pushes all supported SQL operations (filters, JOINs, etc) directly to Redshift, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested Redshift data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for Redshift Data

CData Connect Server uses a straightforward, point-and-click interface to connect to data sources and generate APIs.

1. Login to Connect Server and click Connections.
2. Select "Redshift" from Available Data Sources.
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Redshift.

   To connect to Redshift, set the following:

   • Server: Set this to the host name or IP address of the cluster hosting the Database you want to connect to.
   • Port: Set this to the port of the cluster.
   • Database: Set this to the name of the database. Or, leave this blank to use the default database of the authenticated user.
   • User: Set this to the username you want to use to authenticate to the Server.
   • Password: Set this to the password you want to use to authenticate to the Server.

   You can obtain the Server and Port values in the AWS Management Console:

   1. Open the Amazon Redshift console (http://console.aws.amazon.com/redshift).
   2. On the Clusters page, click the name of the cluster.
   3. On the Configuration tab for the cluster, copy the cluster URL from the connection strings displayed.
4. Click Save Changes
5. Click Privileges -> Add and add the new user (or an existing user) with the appropriate permissions.

With the virtual database created, you are ready to connect to Redshift data from Redash.

Visualize Redshift Data in Redash

The steps below outline creating a new data source in Redash based on the virtual Redshift database in Connect Server and building a simple visualization from the data.

Create a New Data Source

1. Log into Redash, click on your profile and click "Data Sources"
2. Click the " New Data Source" button
3. Select "Microsoft SQL Server" as the Data Source Type
4. On the configuration tab, set the following properties:
   • Name: Name the data source (e.g. Redshift (CData Connect))
   • Host: The full URL to your CData Connect instance (e.g. https://connect_server_url)
   • Port: The port of the CData Connect SQL Server endpoint (e.g. 1433)
   • User: A CData Connect user
   • Password: The password for the above user
   • Database name: The name of the virtual database for Redshift (e.g. Redshift1)
   • Click the checkbox to Use SSQL
5. Click Create
6. Click the "Test Connection" button to ensure you have configured the connection properly

With the new Data Source created, we are ready to visualize our Redshift data.

Create a Redshift Data Visualization

1. Click Create -> New Query
2. Select the newly created Data Source (you can explore the data structure in the New Query wizard)
3. Write a SQL statement to retrieve the data, for example:
   SELECT ShipName, ShipCity FROM Orders
4. Click the "Execute" button to load Redshift data into Redash via CData Connect
5. Use the Visualization Editor to create and analyze graphs from Redshift data
6. You can schedule the query to refresh and update the visualization periodically

SQL Access to Redshift Data from Cloud Applications

At this point, you have a direct, cloud-to-cloud connection to Redshift data from Redash. You can create new visualizations, build dashboards, and more. For more information on gaining SQL access to data from more than 100 SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources from cloud applications like Redash, refer to our Connect Server page.