Azure Blob Storage OCF Connector: Overview

The OCF connector for Azure Blob Storage was developed by Alation and is available as a Zip file that can be uploaded and installed in the Alation application.

Create a ticket with Alation Support about receiving the Azure Blob Storage OCF connector package from Alation.

Azure Blob Storage connector supports the following storage accounts:

  • Azure Blob Storage

  • Azure Data Lake Storage Gen 2

This connector should be used to catalog Azure Blob Storage as a file system source in Alation. The connector can be used for the following activities:

  • Metadata extraction—The connector catalogs Azure Blob Storage objects, such as containers, and the content of containers, such as files and folders inside it. It enables users to discover, search, browse, and curate Azure Blob Storage objects as the folder and file catalog objects from the Alation user interface.

  • Schema extraction—The connector extracts and catalogs columns or column headers for semi-structured file formats. Schema extraction is currently supported for CSV, TSV, PSV, and Parquet file formats. Users can search and curate cataloged columns for each file. This is a time-intensive operation as it involves reading individual files.

Team

The following administrators are required to install this connector:

  • Alation Server Admin:

    • Ensures that Alation Connector Manager is installed and running or installs it.

    • Installs the connector.

    • Creates and configures the Azure Blob Storage data source in the catalog.

    • Performs initial extraction and prepares the data source for Alation users.

  • Azure Blob Storage user with the administrator privileges:

    • Azure Blob Inventory configuration.

    • User creation for the Azure Blob Storage OCF connector.

Scope

The table below describes which metadata objects are extracted by this connector and which operations are supported.

Browser

Azure Bolb Storage

Core Capabilities

Automated metadata extraction (MDE)

Yes

Custom query-based MDE

No

Column Extraction

Yes

Search

Yes

Catalog page curation

Yes

Catalog sets

No

Propagation of trust flags

No

Popularity

No

Authentication

Access Key

Yes

Shared Access Signature

Yes

SSL

No

LDAP

No

Technical Metadata

Files

Yes

Attributes/Columns

Yes

Catalog Features

Sampling and profiling

Not applicable

Query log ingestion

Not applicable

Compose

Not applicable

Lineage

Not applicable