Configure for Azure

Please complete the following steps in the listed order to configure your installed instance of the Designer Cloud Powered by Trifacta platform to integrate with an HDInsight cluster.

Pre-requisites

1. Deploy HDI cluster and Alteryx node.

   NOTE: The HDI cluster can be deployed as part of installation from the Marketplace. You can also integrate the platform with a pre-existing cluster. Details are below.

2. Install Designer Cloud Powered by Trifacta platform on the node.

For more information, see Install from Azure Marketplace.

Configure Azure

Create registered application

You must create a Azure Active Directory (AAD) application and grant it the desired access permissions, such as read/write access to the ADLS resource and read/write access to the Azure Key Vault secrets . This service principal is used by the Designer Cloud Powered by Trifacta platform for access to all Azure resources. For more information, see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/azure-resource-manager/resource-group-create-service-principal-portal.

After you have registered, acquire the following information:

These properties are applied later in the configuration process.

Configure the Platform

Configure for HDI

If you are integrating the Designer Cloud Powered by Trifacta platform with a pre-existing HDI cluster, additional configuration is required. See Configure for HDInsight.

Configure base storage layer

For Azure installations, you can set your base storage layer to be HDFS or WASB.

See Set Base Storage Layer.

Configure for Key Vault

For authentication purposes, the Designer Cloud Powered by Trifacta platform must be integrated with an Azure Key Vault keystore. For more information, see https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/key-vault/.

Please complete the following sections to create and configure your Azure Key Vault.

Create a Key Vault resource in Azure

1. Log into the Azure portal.
2. Goto: https://portal.azure.com/#create/Microsoft.KeyVault
3. Complete the form for creating a new Key Vault resource:

   1. Name: Provide a reasonable name for the resource. Example:

      <clusterName>-<applicationName>-<group/organizationName>

   2. Location: Pick the location used by the HDI cluster.
   3. For other fields, add appropriate information based on your enterprise's preferences.
4. To create the resource, click Create.

Enable Key Vault access for the Designer Cloud Powered by Trifacta platform

In the Azure portal, you must assign access policies for application principal of the Alteryx registered application to access the Key Vault.

Steps:

1. In the Azure portal, select the Key Vault you created. Then, select Access Policies.
2. In the Access Policies window, select the Alteryx registered application.
3. Click Add New.
4. For Secret permissions, select the following:
   1. Get
   2. Set
   3. Delete
5. Do not select any other options.
6. Click OK.

Create WASB access token

If you are enabling access to WASB, you must create this token within the Azure Portal.

For more information, see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/rest/api/storageservices/delegating-access-with-a-shared-access-signature.

Configure Key Vault key and secret for WASB

In the Key Vault, you can create key and secret pairs for use.

WASB: To enable access to the Key Vault, you must specify your key and secret values as follows:

Acquire shared access signature value:

In the Azure portal, please do the following:

1. Open your storage account.
2. Select Shared Access Signature.
3. Generate or view existing signatures.
4. For a new or existing signature, copy the SAS token value. Omit the leading question mark (?).
5. Paste this value into a text file for safekeeping.

Create a custom key:

To create a custom key and secret pair for WASB use by the Designer Cloud Powered by Trifacta platform, please complete the following steps:

1. On an existing or newly created Azure Key Vault resource, click Secrets.
2. At the top of the menu, click Generate/Import.
3. In the Create a secret menu:
   1. Select Manual for upload options.

   2. Chose an appropriate name for the key.

      NOTE: Please retain the name of the key for later use, when it is applied through the Designer Cloud Powered by Trifacta platform as the sasTokenId value. Instructions are provided later.

   3. Paste the SAS token value for the key into the secret field.
   4. Click Create.

Configure Key Vault location

For ADLS or WASB, the location of the Azure Key Vault must be specified for the Designer Cloud Powered by Trifacta platform. The location can be found in the properties section of the Key Vault resource in the Azure portal.

Steps:

1. Log in to the Azure portal.
2. Select the Key Vault resource.
3. Click Properties.
4. Locate the DNS Name field. Copy the field value.

This value is the location for the Key Vault. It must be applied in the Designer Cloud Powered by Trifacta platform.

Steps:

1. You can apply this change through the Admin Settings Page (recommended) or trifacta-conf.json. For more information, see Platform Configuration Methods.

2. Specify the URL in the following parameter:

   "azure.keyVaultURL": "<your key value URL>",

Apply SAS token identifier for WASB

If you are using WASB as your base storage layer, you must apply the SAS token value into the configuration of the Designer Cloud Powered by Trifacta platform.

Steps:

1. You can apply this change through the Admin Settings Page (recommended) or trifacta-conf.json. For more information, see Platform Configuration Methods.

2. Paste the value of the SAS Token for the key you created in the Key Vault as the following value:

   "azure.wasb.defaultStore.sasTokenId": "<your Sas Token Id>",

3. Save your changes.

Configure Secure Token Service

Access to the Key Vault requires use of the secure token service (STS) from the Designer Cloud Powered by Trifacta platform. To use STS with Azure, the following properties must be specified.

You can apply this change through the Admin Settings Page (recommended) or trifacta-conf.json. For more information, see Platform Configuration Methods.

Configure for SSO

If needed, you can integrate the Designer Cloud Powered by Trifacta platform with Azure AD for Single-Sign On to the platform. See Configure SSO for Azure AD.

Configure for ADLS

Enable read-only or read-write access to ADLS. For more information, see Enable ADLS Access.

Configure for WASB

Enable read-only or read-write access to WASB. For more information on integrating with WASB, see Enable WASB Access.

Configure relational connections

If you are integrating Designer Cloud Enterprise Edition with relational datastores, please complete the following configuration sections.

Create encryption key file

An encryption key file must be created on the Alteryx node. This key file is shared across all relational connections. See Create Encryption Key File.

Create Hive connection

You can create a connection to the Hive instance on the HDI cluster with some modifications.

Natively, Azure supports high availability for HiveServer2 via Zookeeper. As a result, host and port information in the JDBC URL must be replaced with a Zookeeper quorum.

In addition to the other Hive connection properties, please specify the following values for the properties listed below:

zk1.cloudapp.net:2181,zk2.cloudapp.net:2181,zk3.cloudapp.net

/;serviceDiscoveryMode=zooKeeper;zooKeeperNamespace=hiveserver2

Connections are created through the Connections page. See Connections Page.

For additional details on creating a conection to Hive, see Create Hive Connections.

A Hive connection can also be created using the above property substitutions via CLI or API.

• For details on values to use when creating via CLI or API, see Connection Types.
• See CLI for Connections.
• See API Connections Create v3.

Create Azure SQL DB connection

For more information, see Create SQL DB Connections.

Create Azure SQL DW connection

For more information, see Create SQL DW Connections.

Workaround for missing Python packages

After installation, the supervisord process may complain about some Python packages that are "missing."

These packages are present but lack the appropriate permissions. To enable the packages for use, please run the following on the Alteryx node:

python_dir="/usr/local/lib/python2.7"
directories=$(find "$python_dir/dist-packages/" -maxdepth 2 -type d)
for d in $directories; do
  chmod 775 "${d}"
  chmod ugo+r "${d}"/*
done

Testing

1. Load a dataset from the HDI cluster through either ADLS or WASB.
2. Perform a few simple steps on the dataset.
3. Click Run Job in the Transformer page. 
4. When specifying the job: 
   1. Click the Profile Results checkbox.
   2. Select Hadoop.
5. When the job completes, verify that the results have been written to the appropriate location.