Automated Continuous IBM Cloud Object Storage Replication to Snowflake

Always-on applications rely on automatic failover capabilities and real-time data access. CData Sync integrates live IBM Cloud Object Storage data into your Snowflake instance, allowing you to consolidate all of your data into a single location for archiving, reporting, analytics, machine learning, artificial intelligence and more.

Configure Snowflake as a Replication Destination

Using CData Sync, you can replicate IBM Cloud Object Storage data to Snowflake. To add a replication destination, navigate to the Connections tab.

1. Click Add Connection.
2. Select the Destinations tab and locate the Snowflake connector.
3. Click the Configure Connection icon at the end of that row to open the New Connection page. If the Configure Connection icon is not available, click the Download Connector icon to install the Snowflake connector. For more information about installing new connectors, see Connections in the Help documentation.
4. To connect to Snowflake, set the following connection properties:
   • Connection Name: Enter a connection name of your choice for the Snowflake connection.
   • Warehouse: Enter the name of your Snowflake warehouse.
   • URL: Enter the URL for your Snowflake database. CData Sync supports both Microsoft Azure and Amazon Web Services (AWS) instances:
     • AWS: https://MyAccount.Region.snowflakecomputing.com
     • Azure: https://MyAccount.Region.azure.snowflakecomputing.com
   • URL: Enter the URL of the Snowflake database instance, for example: https://myaccount.snowflakecomputing.com
   • Database: The name of the Snowflake database
   • Auth Scheme: Select the authentication scheme. The default auth scheme is Password. The auth schemes available for Snowflake are Password, OKTA, PrivateKey, AzureAD, OAuth, PingFederate, and External Browser.
   • User: Enter the username that you use to authenticate to Snowflake.
   • Password: Enter the password that you use to authenticate to Snowflake.
   • Schema: The schema of the Snowflake database.

5. Once connected, click Create & Test to create, test and save the connection.

You are now connected to Snowflake and can use it as both a source and a destination.

NOTE: You can use the Label feature to add a label for a source or a destination.

In this article, we will demonstrate how to load IBM Cloud Object Storage data into Snowflake and utilize it as a destination.

Configure the IBM Cloud Object Storage Connection

You can configure a connection to IBM Cloud Object Storage from the Connections tab. To add a connection to your IBM Cloud Object Storage account, navigate to the Connections tab.

1. Click Add Connection.
2. Select a source (IBM Cloud Object Storage).
3. Configure the connection properties.
   
   

   Register a New Instance of Cloud Object Storage

   If you do not already have Cloud Object Storage in your IBM Cloud account, follow the procedure below to install an instance of SQL Query in your account:

   1. Log in to your IBM Cloud account.
   2. Navigate to the page, choose a name for your instance and click Create. You will be redirected to the instance of Cloud Object Storage you just created.

   Connecting using OAuth Authentication

   There are certain connection properties you need to set before you can connect. You can obtain these as follows:

   API Key

   To connect with IBM Cloud Object Storage, you need an API Key. You can obtain this as follows:

   1. Log in to your IBM Cloud account.
   2. Navigate to the Platform API Keys page.
   3. On the middle-right corner click "Create an IBM Cloud API Key" to create a new API Key.
   4. In the pop-up window, specify the API Key name and click "Create". Note the API Key as you can never access it again from the dashboard.

   Cloud Object Storage CRN

   If you have multiple accounts, specify the CloudObjectStorageCRN explicitly. To find the appropriate value, you can:

   • Query the Services view. This will list your IBM Cloud Object Storage instances along with the CRN for each.
   • Locate the CRN directly in IBM Cloud. To do so, navigate to your IBM Cloud Dashboard. In the Resource List, Under Storage, select your Cloud Object Storage resource to get its CRN.

   Connecting to Data

   You can now set the following to connect to data:

   • InitiateOAuth: Set this to GETANDREFRESH. You can use InitiateOAuth to avoid repeating the OAuth exchange and manually setting the OAuthAccessToken.
   • ApiKey: Set this to your API key which was noted during setup.
   • CloudObjectStorageCRN (Optional): Set this to the cloud object storage CRN you want to work with. While the connector attempts to retrieve this automatically, specifying this explicitly is recommended if you have more than Cloud Object Storage account.

   When you connect, the connector completes the OAuth process.

   1. Extracts the access token and authenticates requests.
   2. Saves OAuth values in OAuthSettingsLocation to be persisted across connections.
   
4. Click Connect to IBM Cloud Object Storage to ensure that the connection is configured properly.
5. Click Save & Test to save the changes.

Configure Replication Queries

CData Sync enables you to control replication with a point-and-click interface and with SQL queries. For each replication you wish to configure, navigate to the Jobs tab and click Add Job. Select the Source and Destination for your replication.

Replicate Entire Tables

To replicate an entire table, navigate to the Task tab in the Job, click Add Tasks, choose the table(s) from the list of IBM Cloud Object Storage tables you wish to replicate into Snowflake, and click Add Tasks again.

Customize Your Replication

Schedule Your Replication

Select the Overview tab in the Job, and click Configure under Schedule. You can schedule a job to run automatically by configuring it to run at specified intervals, ranging from once every 10 minutes to once every month.

Once you have configured the replication job, click Save Changes. You can configure any number of jobs to manage the replication of your IBM Cloud Object Storage data to Snowflake.

Run the Replication Job

Once all the required configurations are made for the job, select the IBM Cloud Object Storage table you wish to replicate and click Run. After the replication completes successfully, a notification appears, showing the time taken to run the job and the number of rows replicated.

Free Trial & More Information

Now that you have seen how to replicate IBM Cloud Object Storage data into Snowflake, visit our CData Sync page to explore more about CData Sync and download a free 30-day trial. Start consolidating your enterprise data today!

As always, our world-class Support Team is ready to answer any questions you may have.