Use Claude to Talk to Your Azure Data Lake Storage Data via CData Connect Cloud

Claude is a family of advanced large language models (LLMs) built by Anthropic, an AI research company founded in 2021. These models power the Claude conversational assistant and developer tools.

CData Connect Cloud offers a dedicated cloud-to-cloud interface for connecting to Azure Data Lake Storage data. The CData Connect Cloud Remote MCP Server enables secure communication between Claude and Azure Data Lake Storage. This allows you to ask questions and take actions on your Azure Data Lake Storage data using Claude, all without the need for data replication to a natively supported database. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect Cloud efficiently channels all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, directly to Azure Data Lake Storage. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly deliver the requested Azure Data Lake Storage data.

Step 1: Configure Azure Data Lake Storage Connectivity for Claude

Connectivity to Azure Data Lake Storage from Claude is made possible through CData Connect Cloud Remote MCP. To interact with Azure Data Lake Storage data from Claude, we start by creating and configuring a Azure Data Lake Storage connection in CData Connect Cloud.

1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Sources, and then click Add Connection

2. Select "Azure Data Lake Storage" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to Azure Data Lake Storage.

   Authenticating to a Gen 1 DataLakeStore Account

   Gen 1 uses OAuth 2.0 in Entra ID (formerly Azure AD) for authentication.

   For this, an Active Directory web application is required. You can create one as follows:

   1. Sign in to your Azure Account through the .
   2. Select "Entra ID" (formerly Azure AD).
   3. Select "App registrations".
   4. Select "New application registration".
   5. Provide a name and URL for the application. Select Web app for the type of application you want to create.
   6. Select "Required permissions" and change the required permissions for this app. At a minimum, "Azure Data Lake" and "Windows Azure Service Management API" are required.
   7. Select "Key" and generate a new key. Add a description, a duration, and take note of the generated key. You won't be able to see it again.

   To authenticate against a Gen 1 DataLakeStore account, the following properties are required:

   • Schema: Set this to ADLSGen1.
   • Account: Set this to the name of the account.
   • OAuthClientId: Set this to the application Id of the app you created.
   • OAuthClientSecret: Set this to the key generated for the app you created.
   • TenantId: Set this to the tenant Id. See the property for more information on how to acquire this.
   • Directory: Set this to the path which will be used to store the replicated file. If not specified, the root directory will be used.

   Authenticating to a Gen 2 DataLakeStore Account

   To authenticate against a Gen 2 DataLakeStore account, the following properties are required:

   • Schema: Set this to ADLSGen2.
   • Account: Set this to the name of the account.
   • FileSystem: Set this to the file system which will be used for this account.
   • AccessKey: Set this to the access key which will be used to authenticate the calls to the API. See the property for more information on how to acquire this.
   • Directory: Set this to the path which will be used to store the replicated file. If not specified, the root directory will be used.
4. Click Save & Test

Step 2: Connect Claude to CData Connect Cloud

Follow these steps to add a CData Connect Cloud connector in Claude:

1. Sign in to Claude.ai or create a new account.
2. Expand the left navigation menu.
3. In the bottom-left corner, click your user name and select Settings from the menu. The Settings screen appears.
4. In the Settings screen, click Connectors.
5. In the top-right corner, set your button toggle to Organization connectors.
6. Click Add custom connector at the bottom of the page.
7. Enter a name for the connector (such as Connect Cloud MCP).
8. In the Remote MCP server URL field, enter https://mcp.cloud.cdata.com/mcp.
9. Click Add to save the connector. The Connect Cloud MCP connector appears under Connectors.
10. Click Connect to the right of the connector and enter your CData Connect Cloud user name and password. You have now connected Claude to CData Connect Cloud.

11. Click the three dots after Connected and select Tools and settings.

12. Review the provided tools and enable or disable specific tools made available by the server. In addition, determine whether you want unsupervised access to the tools, or whether you want Claude to ask your permission.
13. Click Done when finished with your settings.

Step 3: Explore Live Azure Data Lake Storage Azure Data Lake Storage data with Claude

1. In the left navigation menu of Claude, click New chat.
2. You can now start exploring your data with natural language prompts. Claude outlines the steps it uses to retrieve data from the source in CData Connect Cloud. Refer to CData's prompt library for prompt ideas.

NOTE: Claude's setup process is subject to change. Refer to Claude's documentation for the latest setup information.

Get CData Connect Cloud

To get live data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, try CData Connect Cloud today!