Working with JDBC datasources

Siren Investigate can analyze data by directly querying remote JDBC datasources using the Siren Federate plugin.

To create dashboards on JDBC datasources you must:

  • Prepare the Federate plugin to connect to your datasource.

  • Configure the connection to the datasource from Siren Investigate.

  • Create virtual indices for your tables.

You can then configure index patterns on your virtual indices, display them in Discover and configure dashboards and visualizations for the supported aggregations. For more information, see the Supported Aggregations section in Connector APIs.

Siren Federate plugin configuration

For more information on using external JDBC datasources, see Siren Federate.

Neo4j datasources

Neo4j is a graph database, and does not serve data in the way that a conventional relational database does. However, Siren Investigate interacts with Neo4j datasources through the JDBC connector. For more details, see Integrating Neo4j data.

Siren Investigate datasource configuration

Open Siren Investigate in your browser, then go to Management > Datasources.

In the New datasource type box, select JDBC.

The datasource configuration supports the following parameters:

  • Database name: The name of the default database / catalog on the remote datasource (usually optional).

  • Datasource name: The name of the datasource (for example mysql-sales)

  • Driver class: The JDBC driver class name (for example com.mysql.jdbc.Driver)

  • Username and Password: The credentials of the user that will be used by the plugin to open connections.

  • Timezone: If date and timestamp fields are stored in a timezone different that UTC, specifying this parameter will instruct the plugin to convert dates and times to/from the specified timezone when performing queries and retrieving results.

  • Connection string: The JDBC connection string; see Supported JDBC drivers. for information about database-specific connection string parameters, JDBC driver installation and compatibility.

Enter the required parameters, then click Save in the top right corner.

Fill in connection parameters

Click Test Connection. If the settings are correctly configured a confirmation dialog is displayed:

Test connection

Click Yes, take me there to map a table from the database to a virtual index:

Virtual Index Configuration

The virtual index configuration supports the following parameters:

  • Datasource name: The name of an existing datasource.

  • Resource name: The name of a table or view on the remote datasource.

  • Virtual index name: The name of the virtual index; this must be a valid lowercase Elasticsearch index name. You should start virtual indices with a common prefix to simplify handling of permissions.

  • Primary key: The name of a unique column. If a virtual index has no primary key it will be possible to perform aggregations, however visualizations that require a unique identifier such as the graph browser will not work with the index.

  • Catalog and Schema: The catalog and schema containing the table specified before; these are usually required only if the connection does not specify a default catalog or schema.

  • Search fields: An optional list of field names that will be searched using the LIKE operator when processing queries written in the search bar.

After the virtual index is configured, click Save in the top right corner. Click Yes, take me there to create an index pattern search pointing to the virtual index.

Virtual Index Configuration Success

Click Create Index Pattern Search and enter the same name used for the Virtual Index, in this example indexfromdb, and click Create.

Index Pattern Search Configuration

From this point, the indexfromdb index pattern search can be used in Discover, Visualize and so on.