Connect to SAS Data Sets Data as an External Source in Dremio

The CData JDBC Driver for SAS Data Sets implements JDBC Standards and allows various applications, including Dremio, to work with live SAS Data Sets data. Dremio is a data lakehouse platform designed to empower self-service, interactive analytics on the data lake. With the CData JDBC driver, you can include live SAS Data Sets data as a part of your enterprise data lake. This article describes how to connect to SAS Data Sets data from Dremio as an External Source.

The CData JDBC Driver enables high-speed access to live SAS Data Sets data in Dremio. Once you install the driver, authenticate with SAS Data Sets and gain immediate access to SAS Data Sets data within your data lake. By surfacing SAS Data Sets data using native data types and handling complex filters, aggregations, & other operations automatically, the CData JDBC Driver grants seamless access to SAS Data Sets data.

Prerequisites

This article assumes you are utilizing Docker to run Dremio. You can create a Docker container with the Dremio service using a command similar to the follow:

docker run -d --name dremio -p 9047:9047 -p 31010:31010 dremio/dremio-oss

Where dremio is the name of the container, 9047 is the container's port for the Dremio web interface and 31010 is the port that maps to the Dremio query service. dremio/dremio-oss specifies the image to use.

Build the ARP Connector

To use the CData JDBC Driver in Dremio, you need to build an Advanced Relation Pushdown (ARP) Connector. You can view the source code for the Connector on GitHub or download the ZIP file (GitHub.com) directly. Once you copy or extract the files, run the following command from the root directory of the connector (the directory containing the pom.xml file) to build the connector.

mvn clean install

NOTE: The CData ARP Connectors are build to be compiled with Java 11. Be sure to install Java 11 and use the correct version. You can update your Java version using a command similar to the following:

sudo update-alternatives --config java

Once the JAR file for the connector is built (in the target directory), you are ready to copy the ARP connector and JDBC Driver to your Dremio instance.

Installing the Connector and JDBC Driver

Install the ARP Connector to %DREMIO_HOME%/jars/ and the JDBC Driver for SAS Data Sets to %DREMIO_HOME%/jars/3rdparty. You can use commands similar to the following:

ARP Connector

docker cp PATH\TO\dremio-sasdatasets-plugin-{DREMIO_VERSION}.jar dremio_image_name:/opt/dremio/jars/

JDBC Driver for SAS Data Sets

docker cp PATH\TO\cdata.jdbc.sasdatasets.jar dremio_image_name:/opt/dremio/jars/3rdparty/

Connecting to SAS Data Sets

SAS Data Sets will now appear as an External Source option in Dremio. The ARP Connector built uses a JDBC URL to connect to SAS Data Sets data. The JDBC Driver has a built-in connection string designer that you can use (see below).

Built-in Connection String Designer

For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the SAS Data Sets JDBC Driver. Double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command line.

java -jar cdata.jdbc.sasdatasets.jar

Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

Set the following connection properties to connect to your SAS DataSet files:

Connecting to Local Files

• Set the Connection Type to "Local." Local files support SELECT, INSERT, and DELETE commands.
• Set the URI to a folder containing SAS files, e.g. C:\PATH\TO\FOLDER\.

Connecting to Cloud-Hosted SAS DataSet Files

While the driver is capable of pulling data from SAS DataSet files hosted on a variety of cloud data stores, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE are not supported outside of local files in this driver.

Set the Connection Type to the service hosting your SAS DataSet files. A unique prefix at the beginning of the URI connection property is used to identify the cloud data store and the remainder of the path is a relative path to the desired folder (one table per file) or single file (a single table). For more information, refer to the Getting Started section of the Help documentation.

NOTE: To use the JDBC Driver in Dremio, you will need a license (full or trial) and a Runtime Key (RTK). For more information on obtaining this license (or a trial), contact our sales team.

Add the Runtime Key (RTK) to the JDBC URL. You will end up with a JDBC URL similar to the following:

jdbc:sasdatasets:RTK=5246...;URI=C:/myfolder;

Access SAS Data Sets as an External Source

To add SAS Data Sets as an External Source, click to add a new source and select SASDataSets. Copy the JDBC URL and paste it into the New SASDataSets Source wizard.

Save the connection and you are ready to query live SAS Data Sets data in Dremio, easily incorporating SAS Data Sets data into your data lake.

More Information & Free Trial

Using the CData JDBC Driver for SAS Data Sets in Dremio, you can incorporate live SAS Data Sets data into your data lake. Check out our CData JDBC Driver for SAS Data Sets page for more information about connecting to SAS Data Sets. Download a free, 30 day trial of the CData JDBC Driver for SAS Data Sets and get started today.