Analyze Redshift Data in Infragistics Reveal

Reveal is a data visualization solution provided by Infragistics and can be paired with the CData API Server and Redshift ADO.NET Provider to build dynamic dashboards from live Redshift data. The CData API Server generates an OData API for Redshift, which is natively consumable in Reveal. In this article, we walk through connecting to Redshift in API Server and connecting to the API Server from Infragistics Reveal to create a simple dashboard.

Connect to Redshift from API Server

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

1. Open API Server and click Settings -> Connection -> Add Connection
2. Select "Redshift"
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.
   

Add Redshift Resource Definitions in API Server

After connecting to Redshift, create Resources, which represent API endpoints for Redshift data.

1. Click Settings -> Resources -> Add Resource
2. Select the Redshift connection
3. Select the table you wish to retrieve and click Next
4. (Optional) Edit the resource to select specific fields and more
5. Save the settings

Add an API Server User

Create a User to connect to Redshift from Reveal through API Server.

1. Click Settings -> Users
2. Click Add
3. Configure a User with access to the Redshift Connection and Resource(s)

(Optional) Configure Cross-Origin Resource Sharing (CORS)

When accessing and connecting to multiple different domains from an application such as Ajax, there is a possibility of violating the limitations of cross-site scripting. In that case, configure the CORS settings in Settings -> Server.

• Enable cross-origin resource sharing (CORS): ON
• Allow all domains without '*': ON
• Access-Control-Allow-Methods: GET, PUT, POST, OPTIONS
• Access-Control-Allow-Headers: Authorization

Save the changes to the settings.

Create a Dashboard in Reveal

With the API Server configured, we can visualize Redshift data in Reveal.

1. Log into Reveal and click Dashboards -> New
2. Click Data Source -> OData Feed
3. Specify the API Server API endpoint URL, for example: https://serverurl/api.rsc
4. Select Generic Credentials and specify the API Server username and authentication token
5. Select the entity you wish to visualize
6. Select fields and choose a chart type

More Information & Free Trial

At this point, you have created a simple dashboard from live Redshift data. For more information on creating OData feeds from Redshift (and more than 150 other sources), visit the API Server page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live Redshift data in tools that consume OData APIs.