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Create BigQuery-Connected Dashboards in Grafana
Connect to BigQuery Data via CData Connect Cloud in Grafana and create custom business dashboards with real-time access to BigQuery data.
Grafana is an open-source platform that allows users to analyze, monitor, and visualize telemetry from various data sources. When combined with CData Connect Cloud, you gain immediate access to BigQuery data for business dashboards. This article outlines the process of connecting to BigQuery using Connect Cloud and creating a basic dashboard from BigQuery data within Grafana.
CData Connect Cloud offers a pure SQL Server, cloud-to-cloud interface for BigQuery, enabling the creation of dashboards directly from live BigQuery data within Grafana, all without the need for data replication to a native database. As you build visualizations, Grafana generates SQL queries to gather data. With its inherent optimized data processing capabilities, CData Connect Cloud efficiently channels all supported SQL operations, including filters and JOINs, directly to BigQuery. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly deliver the requested BigQuery data.
About BigQuery Data Integration
CData simplifies access and integration of live Google BigQuery data. Our customers leverage CData connectivity to:
- Simplify access to BigQuery with broad out-of-the-box support for authentication schemes, including OAuth, OAuth JWT, and GCP Instance.
- Enhance data workflows with Bi-directional data access between BigQuery and other applications.
- Perform key BigQuery actions like starting, retrieving, and canceling jobs; deleting tables; or insert job loads through SQL stored procedures.
Most CData customers are using Google BigQuery as their data warehouse and so use CData solutions to migrate business data from separate sources into BigQuery for comprehensive analytics. Other customers use our connectivity to analyze and report on their Google BigQuery data, with many customers using both solutions.
For more details on how CData enhances your Google BigQuery experience, check out our blog post: https://www.cdata.com/blog/what-is-bigquery
Getting Started
Configure BigQuery Connectivity for Grafana
Connectivity to BigQuery from Grafana is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with BigQuery data from Grafana, we start by creating and configuring a BigQuery connection.
- Log into Connect Cloud, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
- Select "BigQuery" from the Add Connection panel
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BigQuery uses OAuth to authenticate. Click "Sign in" to authenticate with BigQuery.
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Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add BigQuery Connection page and update the User-based permissions.
Add a Personal Access Token
When connecting to Connect Cloud through the REST API, the OData API, or the Virtual SQL Server, a Personal Access Token (PAT) is used to authenticate the connection to Connect Cloud. It is best practice to create a separate PAT for each service to maintain granularity of access.
- Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect Cloud app to open the settings page.
- On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
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Give the PAT a name and click Create.
- The personal access token is only visible at creation, so be sure to copy it and store it securely for future use.
With the connection configured and a PAT generated, you are ready to connect to BigQuery data from Grafana.
Visualize Live BigQuery Data in Grafana
To establish a connection from Grafana to the CData Connect Cloud Virtual SQL Server API, follow these steps.
- If you have not already done so, download and install Grafana for your operating system from the Grafana Website. Once installed, access Grafana at http://localhost:3000/.
- Log in to Grafana with your username and password for Grafana. If this is your first time logging in, the username is admin and the password is admin.
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On the navigation menu, click Connections > Add new connection. On this page, you can search for Microsoft SQL Server and select it as your data source.
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Select Microsoft SQL Server and click Add new data source.
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Enter a name for the new data source and then enter the following connection settings:
- Host: tds.cdata.com:14333
- Database: enter the Connection Name of the CData Connect Cloud data source you want to connect to (for example, GoogleBigQuery1).
- Username: enter your CData Connect Cloud username. This is displayed in the top-right corner of the CData Connect Cloud interface. For example, [email protected].
- Password: enter the PAT you previously generated.
- Click Save & Test. A Database Connect OK message appears when you have a successful connection established.
Create a Dashboard
Once you create the data source for BigQuery, you can start building dashboards on BigQuery data. Start in the navigation menu and click Dashboards
- On the Dashboards page, click + Create dashboard, then click + Add visualization.
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This opens the Select data source window where you can select your created connection.
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After selecting your connection, you can choose the tables and columns that you want to query for your visualization. Then press Run Query to run the generated query.
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After running your query, the resulting data is populated above the query editor. Here you can select the visualization that you want to use to present your data on the dashboard panel.
- When you have finished editing your panel, you can click Save dashboard to save the changes made to your Dashboard.
To get live data access to 100+ SaaS, Big Data, and NoSQL sources directly from your cloud applications, try CData Connect Cloud today!
