Connectors → Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3
About Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3
Amazon Simple Storage Service— known as Amazon S3 or AWS S3 — is an object storage service available in the Amazon Web Services cloud. Using either the AWS Console, AWS CLI, or similar, both users and applications upload and download files to AWS S3.
AWS S3 stores files in a bucket using object storage. A bucket is a cloud resource that is similar to a directory or folder. In a bucket, you can store objects. An object is a type of file. The file can be a structured, semi-structured, or unstructured file. As an object, the file also has descriptive metadata.
About the AWS S3 connector
The AWS S3 connector enables Incorta to access files stored in an S3 bucket. Incorta is able to load the following file types from an S3 bucket:
- Text (
.csv
,.tsv
,.tab
,.txt
) - Excel (
.xlsx
) - Parquet (
.parquet
) - Optimized Row Columnar (
.orc
)
The AWS S3 connector also supports the use of Remote tables. Remote tables enable you to access large CSV, Parquet, and ORC files without loading them into Incorta memory. Duplicating these large files wastes disk space and uses too much memory when only a small portion of this data might be needed.
The AWS S3 connector supports the following Incorta specific functionality:
Feature | Supported |
---|---|
Chunking | ✔ |
Data Agent | |
Encryption at Ingest | |
Incremental Load | ✔ |
Multi-Source | ✔ |
OAuth | |
Performance Optimized | ✔ |
Remote | ✔ |
Single-Source | ✔ |
Spark Extraction | |
Webhook Callbacks | ✔ |
Steps to connect AWS S3 and Incorta
When you connect AWS S3 and Incorta, you authenticate to the desired bucket. Depending on the provided credentials, a bucket’s access permissions or policies may require changes to allow access. To familiarize yourself with access management for buckets and objects, see Identity and Access Management in Amazon S3.
While Amazon S3 allows anonymous authentication to buckets and their objects, the S3 connector requires specific user credentials. These credentials include the Access Key ID and Secret Access Key of either the root Amazon AWS user or an IAM user account. The EC2 instance profile is not supported.
The root user for your organization's AWS account can create an IAM user and grant this user the necessary access rights to the AWS S3 bucket. The same administrator can also generate access keys for the IAM user. There are two parts of a key: the Access Key ID (AKIAIOSFODNN7EXAMPLE
) and the Secret Access Key (wJalrXUtnFEMI/K7MDENG/bPxRfiCYEXAMPLEKEY
). You need both parts to access an AWS S3 bucket using this connector.
To connect AWS S3 and Incorta, here are the high level steps, tools, and procedures:
- Create an external data source
- Create a schema with the Schema Wizard
- or, Create a schema with the Schema Designer
- Load the schema
- Explore the schema
Create an external data source
Here are the steps to create a external data source with the AWS S3 connector:
- Sign in to the Incorta Direct Data Platform.
- In the Navigation bar, select Data.
- In the Action bar, select + New → Add Data Source.
- In the Choose a Data Source dialog, in Data lake, select Data Lake - AWS S3.
- In the New Data Source dialog, specify the applicable connector properties.
- To test, select Test Connection.
- Select Ok to save your changes.
AWS S3 connector properties
Here are the properties for the AWS S3 connector:
Property | Control | Description |
---|---|---|
Data Source Name | text box | Enter the name of the data source |
Access Key ID | text box | Enter the API Key ID required to access the data |
Secret Access Key | text box | Enter the Secret Access Key required to access the data |
Bucket | text box | Enter the s3a bucket URI to the bucket. The default format is:s3a://<bucket_name>/path/to/root/directory |
Maximum Concurrent Connections | text box | The maximum number of simultaneous connections to S3. The default is 256. |
Region | drop down list | Select the region of the S3 bucket. This property is required for Incorta version 4.9.1 and later. |
For the bucket, you must specify the s3 URI in the s3a format. For example, when you copy the s3 URI for a given bucket for the AWS console, the copied value is in s3 URI format. You must change the prefix from s3://
to s3a://
. Here is an example:
s3://content.incorta.com/nyc-taxi/yellow_tripdata/200901-201412/
You must change this to:
s3a://content.incorta.com/nyc-taxi/yellow_tripdata/200901-201412/
Create a schema with the Schema Wizard
Here are the steps to create an AWS S3 schema with the Schema Wizard:
- Sign in to the Incorta Direct Data Platform.
- In the Navigation bar, select Schema.
- In the Action bar, select + New → Schema Wizard
- In (1) Choose a Source, specify the following:
- For Enter a name, enter the schema name.
- For Select a Datasource, select the AWS S3 external data source.
- Optionally create a description.
- In the Schema Wizard footer, select Next.
- In (2) Manage Tables, in the Data Panel, navigate the directory tree as necessary to select the AWS S3 files. You can either check the Select All checkbox or select individual sheets.
- In the Schema Wizard footer, select Next.
- In (3) Finalize, in the Schema Wizard footer, select Create Schema.
Create a schema with the Schema Designer
Here are the steps to create an AWS S3 schema using the Schema Designer:
- Sign in to the Incorta Direct Data Platform.
- In the Navigation bar, select Schema.
- In the Action bar, select + New → Create Schema.
- In Name, specify the schema name, and select Save.
- In Start adding tables to your schema, select Data Lake.
- In the Data Source dialog, specify the AWS S3 table data source properties.
- Select Add.
- In the Table Editor, in the Table Summary section, enter the table name.
- To save your changes, select Done in the Action bar.
AWS S3 table data source properties
For a schema table in Incorta, you can define AWS S3 specific data source properties as follows:
Property | Control | Description |
---|---|---|
Type | drop down list | Default is Data Lake |
Data Source | drop down list | Select the AWS S3 external data source |
Remote | toggle | Enable this option to remotely access file data, which means no data is loaded to Incorta. See the Summary of Data Access Methods table for details on how setting this and the Performance Optimized property affects data accessibility. |
File Type | drop down list | Select a file type option: ● Text (csv, tsv, tab, txt) ● Excel (xlsx) - not an option with Remote enabled ● Parquet ● ORC |
Incremental | toggle | Enables incremental loading for the schema table |
Has Header? | toggle | This property appears when Remote is disabled and the File Type is Text. Enable this property to indicate the data source has a header row. |
Rows to Skip | text box | This property appears when Remote is disabled and the File Type is Text. Enter the number of rows to skip from the top of the file. |
Wildcard Union | toggle | Enable this property to get incremental data file updates from an existing directory |
File Path | text box | This property appears when Wildcard Union is disabled. Enter the path to the data file, relative to the root directory configured in the data source. |
Worksheet | text box | This property appears when Wildcard Union is disabled and the File Type is Excel. Select the data file worksheet of interest. |
Update File | text box | This property appears when Incremental is enabled and Wildcard Union is disabled. Enter the path to the update file, relative to the root directory configured in the data source. |
Update Worksheet | text box | This property appears when the File Type is Excel, Incremental is enabled, and Wildcard Union is disabled. Select the update file worksheet of interest. |
Incremental Extract Using | drop down list | This property appears when Incremental and Wildcard Union are enabled. Select an incremental load method. |
Timestamp format in file name | drop down list | This property appears when the Timestamp in File Name option is selected for the Incremental Extract Using property. Select the timestamp format that appears in the file name. |
Directory Path | text box | This property appears when Wildcard Union is enabled. Enter the path to the directory, relative to the root directory configured in the data source. To use the root directory, enter ./ or . |
Apply Include Pattern on | drop down list | This property appears when Wildcard Union is enabled. Select either: ● File Name - apply pattern on all file names in the selected directory path ● File Relative Path - apply pattern on relative path in the selected directory path |
Include | text box | This property appears when Wildcard Union is enabled. This property appears when Wildcard Union is enabled. To include only certain files in the load process, enter a prefix to compare against: ● The names of the files in a directory if Apply Include Pattern on has a value of File Name. For example, entering sales* .parquet will load only those files that start with the word sales and end with .parquet .● The relative path in a directory if Apply Include Pattern has a value of File Relative Path. For example, entering sales will load those files in the sales directory. |
Exclude | text box | This property appears when Wildcard Union is enabled. To exclude files from the load process, enter a prefix to compare against. Files that match the prefix will not be loaded. |
Include Sub-Directories | toggle | This property appears when Wildcard Union is enabled. Enable this property to load files within all subdirectories of the directory path hierarchy. If an Include prefix is specified, only files or relative paths in the subdirectories matching the prefix will be loaded. |
Include Filename as a Column | toggle | This property appears when Wildcard Union is enabled. Enable this property to add the file name as the first column in the schema table. |
Date Format | drop down list | This property appears when the File Type is Text. Select the text file date format. |
Timestamp Format | drop down list | This property appears when the File Type is Text. Select the text file timestamp format. |
Character Set | drop down list | This property appears when the File Type is Text. Select the text file character set. |
Separator | drop down list | This property appears when the File Type is Text. Select the text file separator. |
Enable Chunking | toggle | This property appears when the File Type is Text. Turn this property on to process the text file in chunks. |
Callback | toggle | Enable this property on to expose the Callback URL field |
Callback URL | text box | This property appears when the Callback toggle is enabled. Specify the URL. |
Summary of Data Access Methods Based on Remote and Performance Optimized Settings
Table Properties | Data Source Properties | Parquet | DDM | Memory | SQLi | MV/ Notebooks | Analytics |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Performance Optimized = Off | Remote = On | No | No | No | Yes | Yes | No |
Performance Optimized = Off | Remote = Off | Yes | Yes | No | Yes | Yes | No, unless populated via MV/Notebook |
Performance Optimized = On | Remote = Off | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Incremental Extract Methods
Last Successful Extract Time: This option will load data from the time the last successful extract occurred.
Here is an example use case of Last Successful Extract Time:
- A directory containing all the sales data is located at
/path/to/sales
- The directory contains the following files:
/path/to/sales/sales_california.parquet
,/path/to/sales/sales_newyork.parquet
,/path/to/sales/illinois.parquet
When you perform a full load, the union of all existing files will be extracted into the same table. After that, if the directory receives a new file, such as /path/to/sales/sales_ohio.parquet, the next incremental load will pick up this file since its last modified timestamp will be more recent than that of the files extracted in the previous full load.
- A directory containing all the sales data is located at
Timestamp in File Name: This option will load data from the time specified in the file name.
Here is an example use case of Timestamp in File Name:
- A directory containing all the sales data is located at
/path/to/sales
- The directory receives a new file on daily basis:
/path/to/sales/sales_2020-04-01.parquet
,/path/to/sales/sales_2020-04-02.parquet
,/path/to/sales/sales_2020-04-03.parquet
When you perform a full load, the union of all existing files will be extracted into the same table. After that, if the directory receives a new file, such as
/path/to/sales/sales_2020-04-04.parquet
, the next incremental load will pick up this file since the timestamp in the file name is more recent than that of the files extracted in the previous full load.- A directory containing all the sales data is located at
Timestamp Formats in File Name
- yyyy-MM-dd
- dd.MM.yyyy
- dd-MMM-yy
- dd-MMM-yyyy
- yyyy-MM-dd HH.mm.ss
- Unix Epoch (seconds)
- Unix Epoch (milliseconds)
Text File Date Format
- yyyy-MM-dd
- dd/MM/yyyy
- dd.MM.yyyy
- dd/MMM/yyyy
- dd-MMM-yy
- dd-MMM-yyyy
- MM/dd/yyyy
- yyyy/MM/dd
- Unix Epoch (seconds
- Unix Epoch (milliseconds)
- Other
Text File Timestamp Format
- yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss
- yyyy-MM-dd HH.mm.ss
- yyyy-MM-dd HH:mm:ss.SSS
- dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss
- dd/MM/yyyy HH.mm.ss
- dd/MM/yyyy HH:mm:ss.SSS
- Unix Epoch (seconds
- Unix Epoch (milliseconds)
- Other
Text File Character Set
- US-ASCII
- ISO-8859-1
- UTF-8
- UTF-16BE
- UTF-16LE
- UTF-16
Text File Separator
- Comma
- Tab
- Other
View the schema diagram with the Schema Diagram Viewer
Here are the steps to view the schema diagram using the Schema Diagram Viewer:
- Sign in to the Incorta Direct Data Platform.
- In the Navigation bar, select Schema.
- In the list of schemas, select the AWS S3 schema.
- In the Schema Designer, in the Action bar, select Diagram.
Load the schema
Here are the steps to perform a Full Load of the AWS S3 schema using the Schema Designer:
- Sign in to the Incorta Direct Data Platform.
- In the Navigation bar, select Schema.
- In the list of schemas, select the AWS S3 schema.
- In the Schema Designer, in the Action bar, select Load → Load Now → Full.
- To review the load status, in Last Load Status, select the date.
Explore the schema
With the full load of the AWS S3 schema complete, you can use the Analyzer to explore the schema, create your first insight, and save the insight to a new dashboard.
To open the Analyzer from the schema, follow these steps:
- In the Navigation bar, select Schema.
- In the Schema Manager, in the List view, select the AWS S3 schema.
- In the Schema Designer, in the Action bar, select Explore Data.