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DSN-Less connection for Snowflake Bulk

Hi all,

 

At present, Alteryx does not support DSN-free connections to Snowflake using the Bulk Connector.    This is a critical functionality for any large company that uses Alteryx - and so I'm hoping that this can be changed in the product in an upcoming release.    As a corollary - every DB connection type has to be able to work without DSNs for any medium or large size server instance - so it's worth extending this to check every DB connection type available in Alteryx.

 

Here are the details:

 

What is DSN-Free?

In order to be able to run our Alteryx canvasses on a multi-node server - we have to avoid using DSNs - so we generally expand connection strings that look like this:

odbc:DSN=DSNSnowFlakeTest;UID=Username;PWD=__EncPwd1__|||NEWTESTDB.PUBLIC.MYTESTTABLE

 

to instead have the fully described connection string like this:
odbc:DRIVER={SnowflakeDSIIDriver};UID=Username;pwd=__EncPwd1__;authenticator=Snowflake;WAREHOUSE=compute_wh;SERVER=xnb27844.us-east-1.snowflakecomputing.com;SCHEMA=PUBLIC;DATABASE=NewTestDB;Staging=local;Method=user

 

For Snowflake BL:

Now - for the Snowflake Bulk Loader the same process does not work and Alteryx gives the classic error below

 

With DSN:

snowbl:DSN=DSNSnowFlakeTest;UID=Username;pwd=__EncPwd1__;Staging=local;Method=user|||NEWTESTDB.PUBLIC.MYTESTTABLE

 

Without DSN:

snowbl:driver=SnowflakeDSIIDriver;UID=SeanBAdamsJPMC;pwd=__EncPwd1__;SERVER=xnb27844.us-east-1.snowflakecomputing.com;WAREHOUSE=compute_wh;SCHEMA=PUBLIC;DATABASE=NewTestDB;Staging=local;Method=user|||NEWTESTDB.PUBLIC.MYTESTTABLE

 

Output Data (6) Error SQLDriverConnect: [Microsoft][ODBC Driver Manager] Data source name not found and no default driver specified" which indicates that the driver details may be wrong

 

 

Many thanks

Sean

3 Comments
renat_isch
Alteryx
Alteryx

Hi @SeanAdams,

 

Hope you're well. My name is Renat, I am Senior PM responsible for Alteryx Data Connectors. Just meant to ping you and let you know that Alteryx 2022.1 release Patch 10 brings support for DSN-less connections for Snowflake BL. You can learn more about the feature at this link: https://help.alteryx.com/current/en/release-notes/designer-release-notes/designer-2022-1-release-not...

 

Best,

Renat

SeanAdams
17 - Castor
17 - Castor

:-) Hey @renat_isch  - this is outstanding news - I'll test this during the next day or so.

Thank you for this!

 

 

the real power of Alteryx is the principle of "Any data; anywhere; without friction" and so this is yet another step in the right direction.

 

Thank you to you and the connectors team!

naveenu
5 - Atom

Hi @SeanAdams,and @renat_isch

 

By installing Patch 2022.1.1.42707 the Snowflake SNOWBL driver is working and tested it successfully.

Below the the sample DSNLESS connection string:

SNOWBL:DRIVER={SnowflakeDSIIDriver};SERVER={server};DATABASE={db};SCHEMA={schema};ROLE={role};WAREHOUSE={warehouse};AUTHENTICATOR={oauth};UID={uid};token=__EncPwd1__;PROXY={proxy};Staging=local;Method=user|||<table>

 

 

-Naveen Kumar