Create Splunk Dashboards in Bold BI

Bold BI allows you to create, share, and collaborate on interactive BI dashboards. When paired with CData Connect Server, you get instant access to Splunk data for visualizations, dashboards, and more. This article shows how to create a virtual database for Splunk and build reports from Splunk data in Bold BI.

CData Connect Server provides a pure SQL Server interface for Splunk, allowing you to easily build reports from live Splunk data in Bold BI — without replicating the data to a natively supported database. As you build visualizations, Bold BI 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 Splunk, leveraging server-side processing to quickly return the requested Splunk data.

Create a Virtual SQL Server Database for Splunk 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 "Splunk" from Available Data Sources.
3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Splunk.

   To authenticate requests, set the User, Password, and URL properties to valid Splunk credentials. The port on which the requests are made to Splunk is port 8089.

   The data provider uses plain-text authentication by default, since the data provider attempts to negotiate TLS/SSL with the server.

   If you need to manually configure TLS/SSL, see Getting Started -> Advanced Settings in the data provider help documentation.

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 Splunk data from Bold BI.

Visualize Live Splunk Data in Bold BI

The steps below outline connecting to CData Connect Server from Bold BI to create a new Splunk data source and build a simple visualization from the data.

1. Log into your Bold BI instance, click the data sources tab, create a new data source, and choose the SQL Server connector.
2. Choose the basic configuration and set the connection properties:
   • Name: Name your connection
   • Server name: Your Connect Server instance (CONNECT_SERVER_URL)
   • Port: 1433
   • Username: Your Connect Server username
   • Password: Your Connect Server password
   • Mode: Choose Live to query Splunk on-demand or choose Extract to load the data into Bold BI
   • Database: Choose the database you created from the drop-down menu (splunkdb)
3. Click Connect
4. Select the table to visualize and drag it onto the workspace.
5. Select a visualization style and add it to the report.
6. Click the gear icon for the visualization to configure the visualization properties and assign columns to the visualization.

SQL Access to Splunk Data from Applications

Now you have a direct connection to live Splunk data from your Bold BI workbook. You can create more data sources and new visualizations, build reports, and more — all without replicating Splunk data.

To get SQL data access to 200+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your applications, see the CData Connect page.