How to connect PolyBase to Vercel

PolyBase for SQL Server allows you to query external data by using the same Transact-SQL syntax used to query a database table. When paired with the CData API Driver for ODBC, you get access to your Vercel data directly alongside your SQL Server data. This article describes creating an external data source and external tables to grant access to live Vercel data using T-SQL queries.

NOTE: PolyBase is only available on SQL Server 19 and above.

The CData ODBC drivers offer unmatched performance for interacting with live Vercel data using PolyBase due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from SQL Server to Vercel, the driver pushes down supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Vercel and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. And with PolyBase, you can also join SQL Server data with Vercel data, using a single query to pull data from distributed sources.

Connect to Vercel

If you have not already, first specify connection properties in an ODBC DSN (data source name). This is the last step of the driver installation. You can use the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure ODBC DSNs. To create an external data source in SQL Server using PolyBase, configure a System DSN (CData Vercel Sys is created automatically).

Using API Key Authentication

Vercel uses Bearer token authentication. You can use either a personal access token or an OAuth access token as the API key.

To obtain a personal access token:

1. Log into your Vercel account at https://vercel.com/
2. Navigate to Account Settings > Tokens.
3. Click Create Token, enter a name and expiration, and click Create.
4. Copy the generated token (it will only be shown once).

After obtaining your token, set the following connection properties:

• AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
• APIKey: Set this to your Vercel personal access token or OAuth access token.

Example Connection String

Profile=C:\profiles\Vercel.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;APIKey=your_access_token;

Working with Teams

Many Vercel resources are scoped to a team. To scope all requests to a specific team, set the TeamId connection property to your team's ID. You can find your team ID by querying the Teams table or from the Vercel dashboard. Alternatively, you can specify TeamId in your SQL queries using the WHERE clause where supported.

Connecting to Vercel

Once the authentication is configured, you can connect to Vercel and query data from any of the available tables such as Projects, Deployments, Teams, and Domains.

Click "Test Connection" to ensure that the DSN is connected to Vercel properly. Navigate to the Tables tab to review the table definitions for Vercel.

Create an External Data Source for Vercel Data

After configuring the connection, you need to create a master encryption key and a credential database for the external data source.

Creating a Master Encryption Key

Execute the following SQL command to create a new master key, 'ENCRYPTION,' to encrypt the credentials for the external data source.

CREATE MASTER KEY ENCRYPTION BY PASSWORD = 'password';

Creating a Credential Database

Execute the following SQL command to create credentials for the external data source connected to Vercel data.

NOTE: Since Vercel does not require a User or Password to authenticate, you may use whatever values you wish for IDENTITY and SECRET.

CREATE DATABASE SCOPED CREDENTIAL api_creds
WITH IDENTITY = 'username', SECRET = 'password';

Create an External Data Source for Vercel

Execute a CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE SQL command to create an external data source for Vercel with PolyBase:

• Set the LOCATION parameter , using the DSN and credentials configured earlier.

For Vercel, set SERVERNAME to the URL or address for your server (e.g. 'localhost' or '127.0.0.1' for local servers; the remote URL for remote servers). Leave PORT empty. PUSHDOWN is set to ON by default, meaning the ODBC Driver can leverage server-side processing for complex queries.

CREATE EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE cdata_api_source
WITH ( 
  LOCATION = 'odbc://SERVER_URL',
  CONNECTION_OPTIONS = 'DSN=CData Vercel Sys',
  -- PUSHDOWN = ON | OFF,
  CREDENTIAL = api_creds
);

Create External Tables for Vercel

After creating the external data source, use CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE statements to link to Vercel data from your SQL Server instance. The table column definitions must match those exposed by the CData API Driver for ODBC. You can refer to the Tables tab of the DSN Configuration Wizard to see the table definition.

Sample CREATE TABLE Statement

The statement to create an external table based on a Vercel User would look similar to the following:

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE User(
   [nvarchar](255) NULL,
   [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  ...
) WITH ( 
  LOCATION='User',
  DATA_SOURCE=cdata_api_source
);

Having created external tables for Vercel in your SQL Server instance, you are now able to query local and remote data simultaneously. Thanks to built-in query processing in the CData ODBC Driver, you know that as much query processing as possible is being pushed to Vercel, freeing up local resources and computing power. Download a free, 30-day trial of the ODBC Driver for Vercel and start working with live Vercel data alongside your SQL Server data today.