Adding a NoSQL Virtual Data Source

Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation

Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation

Available from release V R5 (5.9.x)

To add a NoSQL database as a Virtual Data Source (VDS),

  1. Sign in to Alation, and on the main toolbar, click Sources. The Sources page will open:

    ../../_images/Sources_Page.png
  2. On the upper-right, click +Add and in the menu that opens, click Virtual Data Source:

    ../../_images/Sources_menu_VDS.png
  3. In the Add Data Source dialog that opens, provide the required information and click Continue Setup to go to the next step.

  4. From the Database Type list, select Generic NoSQL:

    ../../_images/NoSQL1.png
  5. Provide a description (optional) and privacy settings ( Public or Private ), then click Save and Continue. The new VDS will be created and you will land on its settings page. Now you can change the settings and upload the metadata.

    Note

    The Privacy settings - Public or Private - can be changed later, on the Access tab of the settings page.

Loading Metadata

Alation does not extract metadata into virtual data sources (VDS) automatically. You will need to upload the metadata using dedicated API.

To upload the metadata,

  1. Click the General Settings tab of your NoSQL VDS setting page to open it:

    ../../_images/NoSQL2.png
  2. Under Bulk Upload API, take note of the URL to use in the API calls. It already includes the ID of the current VDS.

  3. Create a POST request using the NoSQL API. Send the request to this Bulk Upload API URL.

After the upload, your VDS in Alation will have the metadata you have pushed using the API, with each metadata object having a dedicated catalog page.