Configuring an Amazon RDS Data Source
Introduction
Amazon RDS is a cloud database service. This service allows you to host a relational database in the cloud. The type of database (RDBMS) is one of:
- MySQL
- PostgreSQL
- Oracle
- SQL Server
Explore Analytics supports all four. To configure an RDS database you should follow the corresponding instructions for configuring a data source for one of these types of databases.
When configuring a data source, choose the "Direct" connection method. It means that Explore Analytics will connect to the database directly.
In this page, we discuss technical aspects that are unique to RDS, and provide instructions to make your installation successful.
Before Setting Up the Data Source
Before setting up the data source in Explore Analytics, you must authorize Explore Analytics to connect to your database. To do that you need to add a rule in your database security group to allow access from Explore Analytics.
Using the Amazon AWS Console, go to RDS and find the DB Security Group. The security groups define connections that are permitted to your database. To authorize Explore Analytics, you'll need to add a new connection. For "Connection Type", select "EC2 Security Group". Explore Analytics runs on Amazon AWS. In the next column, where it shows the account id, click change and enter the account id of Explore Analytics (966092105153). For the EC2 security group enter "default". Click Add.
Once authorized you can proceed to create the data source in Explore Analytics. You'll need your host name, it's a long name that typically ends with ".rds.amazonaws.com". If you see a port number at the end, for example, for PostgreSQL you'll see ":5432", you can safely omit it as it is the default port number. You'll also need the database name and a database user and password. This is no different than if the database was not hosted on Amazon.
SSL
Explore Analytics supports SSL connection to the RDS database for PostgreSQL. You enable SSL by checking the box in the Data Source dialog (when you create or edit a data source).
