How to connect PolyBase to Zuora

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 ODBC Driver for Zuora, you get access to your Zuora data directly alongside your SQL Server data. This article describes creating an external data source and external tables to grant access to live Zuora data using T-SQL queries.

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

The CData ODBC drivers offer unmatched performance for interacting with live Zuora data using PolyBase due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from SQL Server to Zuora, the driver pushes down supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Zuora 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 Zuora data, using a single query to pull data from distributed sources.

Connect to Zuora

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 Zuora Sys is created automatically).

Zuora uses the OAuth standard to authenticate users. See the online Help documentation for a full OAuth authentication guide.

Configuring Tenant property

In order to create a valid connection with the provider you need to choose one of the Tenant values (USProduction by default) which matches your account configuration. The following is a list with the available options:

• USProduction: Requests sent to https://rest.zuora.com.
• USAPISandbox: Requests sent to https://rest.apisandbox.zuora.com"
• USPerformanceTest: Requests sent to https://rest.pt1.zuora.com"
• EUProduction: Requests sent to https://rest.eu.zuora.com"
• EUSandbox: Requests sent to https://rest.sandbox.eu.zuora.com"

Selecting a Zuora Service

Two Zuora services are available: Data Query and AQuA API. By default ZuoraService is set to AQuADataExport.

DataQuery

The Data Query feature enables you to export data from your Zuora tenant by performing asynchronous, read-only SQL queries. We recommend to use this service for quick lightweight SQL queries.

• The maximum number of input records per table after filters have been applied: 1,000,000
• The maximum number of output records: 100,000
• The maximum number of simultaneous queries submitted for execution per tenant: 5
• The maximum number of queued queries submitted for execution after reaching the limitation of simultaneous queries per tenant: 10
• The maximum processing time for each query in hours: 1
• The maximum size of memory allocated to each query in GB: 2
• The maximum number of indices when using Index Join, in other words, the maximum number of records being returned by the left table based on the unique value used in the WHERE clause when using Index Join: 20,000

AQuADataExport

AQuA API export is designed to export all the records for all the objects ( tables ). AQuA query jobs have the following limitations:

• If a query in an AQuA job is executed longer than 8 hours, this job will be killed automatically.
• The killed AQuA job can be retried three times before returned as failed.

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

Create an External Data Source for Zuora 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 Zuora data.

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

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

Create an External Data Source for Zuora

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

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

For Zuora, 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_zuora_source
WITH ( 
  LOCATION = 'odbc://SERVER_URL',
  CONNECTION_OPTIONS = 'DSN=CData Zuora Sys',
  -- PUSHDOWN = ON | OFF,
  CREDENTIAL = zuora_creds
);

Create External Tables for Zuora

After creating the external data source, use CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE statements to link to Zuora data from your SQL Server instance. The table column definitions must match those exposed by the CData ODBC Driver for Zuora. 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 Zuora Invoices would look similar to the following:

CREATE EXTERNAL TABLE Invoices(
  Id [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  BillingCity [nvarchar](255) NULL,
  ...
) WITH ( 
  LOCATION='Invoices',
  DATA_SOURCE=cdata_zuora_source
);

Having created external tables for Zuora 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 Zuora, freeing up local resources and computing power. Download a free, 30-day trial of the ODBC Driver for Zuora and start working with live Zuora data alongside your SQL Server data today.