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Set Up Azure Blob Storage External Source

  • Capella Analytics
  • how-to
To provide query access to OLAP data in Azure Blob Storage, you create an external link and associate it with an external collection.

Prerequisites

Your Capella Analytics account must have either the Project Owner or Project Manager role to be able to create a link for the external data.

  • If you want to access private data from an Azure Blob Storage container, you need credentials that can list and read data from that container. For more information, see Credentials.

  • You have the path to the data you want to access from your Azure Blob Storage container. For more information, see Location Path.

Create a Link for Azure Blob Storage

To create an external link to Azure Blob Storage:

  1. In the Capella UI, select the Capella Analytics tab.

  2. Click a cluster name.

  3. Use the explorer to explore the existing databases, scopes, and collections. You can add a database and scope if necessary: see Create a Database.

  4. Select Create  Data Link.

  5. Select Azure then click Continue.

  6. In the Link Name field, enter a name for the link.

  7. In the Endpoint field, enter the Azure Storage Service URL for your storage account.

    The endpoint URL has the following format: https://<storageaccountname>.blob.core.windows.net

  8. From Authentication Method, select one of the following options:

    • Anonymous

    • Shared Key

    • Shared Access Signature (SAS)

    • Service Principal (Entra ID)

    Select this option to access a public Azure Blob Storage container that does not require credentials. The endpoint URL you supplied is sufficient.

    • In the Account Name field, enter your Azure Storage Account name.

    • In the Account Key field, enter the associated storage account access key.

    The Account Key is a sensitive credential and is masked in logs.

    • In the Shared Access Signature field, enter a SAS token that grants time-limited access to the required resources.

    The SAS token is a sensitive credential and is masked in logs.

    For more information about generating a SAS token, see Shared access signatures in the Azure documentation.

    • In the Client ID field, enter the Application (client) ID from your Microsoft Entra ID app registration.

    • In the Client Secret field, enter the associated client secret.

    • In the Tenant ID field, enter the Directory (tenant) ID.

    The Client Secret is a sensitive credential and is masked in logs.

    For more information about setting up a Service Principal, see Service Principal (Entra ID) Permissions.

  9. (Optional) Select Disable SSL Verification to turn off SSL/TLS certificate verification.

    Enable this option only for local development or testing environments. Disabling SSL verification in production exposes data in transit to security risks.

  10. Click Save & Continue.

Capella Analytics creates the link to the Azure Blob Storage data source. The new link appears in the Workbench, identified with an Azure tag.

The link is now available to provide your credentials whenever you query data in the external data source.

Because the data in an external collection is not ingested into Capella Analytics and remains on the external host, Capella Analytics cannot index it.

Create a Collection for Azure Blob Storage Data

You must create a collection for the data before you can query it in Capella Analytics. After you create the link to Azure Blob Storage, Capella Analytics prompts you to create a collection for your data. You can create the collection by clicking Create Linked Collection. If you want to create the collection later, click Complete Later. When you’re ready to create the collection, hover over the link name under Links and select More Options (⋮)  Create Linked Collection.

To complete creating the collection:

  1. On the Create Collection Linked to <Azure link name> dialog, select the database and scope and enter a name for the collection.

  2. In the Azure Container Name field, enter the name of the Azure Blob Storage container. Enter only the name of the container, not a URL.

  3. In the Path field, enter one or more prefixes separated by slashes / to identify the location of the files you want to query. Do not include filenames in the path. To query files located at the top-most or container level, leave the path blank. See Design a Location Path.

  4. Choose the File Format of the files at that destination. Depending on the format you select, you may see additional fields:

    • JSON

    • CSV and TSV

    • Parquet

    • Avro

    JSON format requires no additional fields.

    • Define the data types for the fields in the files as a comma-separated list of <field-name> <datatype> values. The <datatype> is one of the primitive data types. If the field’s value does not match the data type, Capella Analytics ignores the record. You can also specify the NOT UNKNOWN flag after the data type to have Capella Analytics ignore the record if the value is missing or null. For example:

      id BIGINT NOT UNKNOWN, firstname STRING, lastname STRING

    • Clear File includes header row if the first line of your CSV file is not a list of the columns in the file.

    • If your data uses a value other than an empty string ("") to indicate a null value, select Use custom string as Null and enter the value.

    Choose whether Capella Analytics should parse embedded JSON data and convert decimal values to doubles.

    Avro format requires no additional fields.

  1. (Optional) Use either the Include or Exclude field to specify files to include in, or exclude from, queries. You can use the following wildcards:

    • * matches any character or characters.

    • ? matches any single character.

    • [ sequence ] matches any characters in the supplied sequence.

    • [! sequence ] matches any characters not in the supplied sequence.

      For example, a container may store both JSON and Parquet files. Enter *.JSON in the Include field to query only the JSON files.

  2. Click Create Collection. Your link and collection appear under the scope in the explorer.

See Also