Use Claude to Talk to Your SQL Server 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 SQL Server data. The CData Connect Cloud Remote MCP Server enables secure communication between Claude and SQL Server. This allows you to ask questions and take actions on your SQL Server 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 SQL Server. This leverages server-side processing to swiftly deliver the requested SQL Server data.

Step 1: Configure SQL Server Connectivity for Claude

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

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

2. Select "SQL Server" from the Add Connection panel

3. Enter the necessary authentication properties to connect to SQL Server.

   Connecting to Microsoft SQL Server

   Connect to Microsoft SQL Server using the following properties:

   • Server: The name of the server running SQL Server.
   • User: The username provided for authentication with SQL Server.
   • Password: The password associated with the authenticating user.
   • Database: The name of the SQL Server database.

   Connecting to Azure SQL Server and Azure Data Warehouse

   You can authenticate to Azure SQL Server or Azure Data Warehouse by setting the following connection properties:

   • Server: The server running Azure. You can find this by logging into the Azure portal and navigating to "SQL databases" (or "SQL data warehouses") -> "Select your database" -> "Overview" -> "Server name."
   • User: The name of the user authenticating to Azure.
   • Password: The password associated with the authenticating user.
   • Database: The name of the database, as seen in the Azure portal on the SQL databases (or SQL warehouses) page.
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 SQL Server SQL Server 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!