Create OData-Connected Dashboards in Grafana


Connect to OData Services via CData Connect Cloud in Grafana and create custom business dashboards with real-time access to OData services.

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 OData services for business dashboards. This article outlines the process of connecting to OData using Connect Cloud and creating a basic dashboard from OData services within Grafana.

CData Connect Cloud offers a pure SQL Server, cloud-to-cloud interface for OData, enabling the creation of dashboards directly from live OData services 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 OData. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly deliver the requested OData services.

About OData Data Integration

CData simplifies access and integration of live OData services data. Our customers leverage CData connectivity to:

  • Access OData versions 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0, working with legacy services and the latest features and capabilities.
  • Leverage advanced query options, including $filter, $select, and $expand, enhancing data retrieval from 3rd party tools.
  • Use Server-side execution of aggregation and grouping to minimize data transfer and boost performance.
  • Authenticate securely using a variety of schemes, including Azure AD, digest, negotiate, NTLM, OAuth, and more means secure authentication with every connection.
  • Use SQL stored procedures to manage OData service entities - listing, creating, and removing associations between entities.

Customers use CData's solutions to regularly integrate their OData services with preferred tools, such as Power BI, MicroStrategy, or Tableau, and to replicate data from OData services to their databases or data warehouses.


Getting Started


Configure OData Connectivity for Grafana

Connectivity to OData from Grafana is made possible through CData Connect Cloud. To work with OData services from Grafana, we start by creating and configuring a OData connection.

  1. Log into Connect Cloud, click Sources, and then click Add Connection
  2. Select "OData" from the Add Connection panel
  3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to OData.

    The User and Password properties, under the Authentication section, must be set to valid OData user credentials. In addition, specify a URL to a valid OData server organization root or OData services file.

  4. Click Create & Test
  5. Navigate to the Permissions tab in the Add OData 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.

  1. Click on the Gear icon () at the top right of the Connect Cloud app to open the settings page.
  2. On the Settings page, go to the Access Tokens section and click Create PAT.
  3. Give the PAT a name and click Create.
  4. 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 OData services from Grafana.

Visualize Live OData Services in Grafana

To establish a connection from Grafana to the CData Connect Cloud Virtual SQL Server API, follow these steps.

  1. 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/.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. Select Microsoft SQL Server and click Add new data source.
  5. 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, OData1).
    • 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.
  6. 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 OData, you can start building dashboards on OData services. Start in the navigation menu and click Dashboards

  1. On the Dashboards page, click + Create dashboard, then click + Add visualization.
  2. This opens the Select data source window where you can select your created connection.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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!

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