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This section describes how to create connections to Microsoft SQL Datawarehouse (DW).

Limitations

Microsoft SQL DW connections are available only if you have deployed the onto Azure.
SSL connections to SQL DW are required.
NOTE: In this release, this connection cannot be created through the CLI or APIs. Please create connections of this type through the application.

Pre-requisites

If you haven't done so already, you must create and deploy an encryption key file for the to be shared by all relational connections. For more information, see Create Encryption Key File.

Connection Types

The supports two types of connections to an Azure SQL DW data warehouse:

Connection Type

Description

Notes

SQL DW Read-Only

Read-only access to the SQL DW data warehouse. This connection is available on the Import Data page only.

To create, see Import Data Page.

This connection requires fewer permissions on the data warehouse and its databases but is less performant.

SQL DW Read-Write

Read-write access to the SQL DW data warehouse. This connection is available for reading, direct publishing, and ad-hoc publishing.

To create, see Connections Page.

This connection requires more permissions. You must also specify an External Datasource Name. See below.

Tip: Spark-based jobs that read or write through your SQL DW connection leverage PolyBase for faster performance.

Azure SQL DW permissions

Read-Only connection: The authenticating DB user must have read permissions to any SQL DW databases, schemas and tables to which the user should have access.
Read-Write connection: In addition to the above, the authenticating DB user must have the following permissions:
CREATE TABLE** ALTER ANY SCHEMA ALTER ANY EXTERNAL DATA SOURCE ALTER ANY EXTERNAL FILE FORMAT
- The authenticating DB user must also have read access to the external data source.

Azure SQL DW External Data Source Name

When specifying a SQL DW Read-Write connection, you can provide an External Data Source Name value as part of the connection definition. The External Data Source enables publishing and support for large-scale data ingestion.

NOTE: This setting is not used for SQL DW Read-Only connections.

If the External Data Source is not provided:

The connection is read-only.
The native ingestion of the is used.

Requirements:

The external data source must be created by the database admin on the default database defined in the SQL DW connection. For more information:
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/statements/create-external-data-source-transact-sql#d-create-external-data-source-to-reference-azure-blob-storage
- https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/statements/create-external-data-source-transact-sql#g-create-external-data-source-to-reference-azure-data-lake-store
The External Data Source must point to the same storage location as the base storage layer for the . For example, if the base storage layer is WASB, the External Datasource must point to the same storage account defined in . If this configuration is incorrect, then publishing and ingestion of data fail.
For more information on privileges required for the authenticating DB user, see https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/t-sql/statements/create-external-table-transact-sql.

Configure

To create this connection:

Read-only connection: See Import Data Page.
Read-write connection: See Connections Page.
For additional details on creating a relational connection, see Enable Relational Connections.

Please create a connection of this type in the appropriate page and modify the following properties with the listed values:

Property Description

Host

Enter your hostname. Example:

testsql.database.windows.net

Port Set this value to 1433.

Database Set this value to the default database name.

External Data Source Name For read-write connections, you must provide an External Data Source. Otherwise, the connection is read-only. See above for details.

Connect String options

Include any options required for your environment:

User Name Username to use to connect to the database.

Password Password associated with the above username.

Default Column Data Type Inference

Set to disabled to prevent the from applying its own type inference to each column on import. The default value is enabled.

Use

For more information on locating data, see Database Browser.

For more information, see Using SQL DW.

Data Conversion

For more information on how values are converted during input and output with this database, see SQL DW Data Type Conversions.