Alation Connector

• Requirements
• Data Mapping and Assumptions
• Metadata Ingestion
• Troubleshooting

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Requirements

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Data Mapping and Assumptions

• Since Alation does not have a concept of a Service entity, the Data Sources (OCF and Native) will be mapped to Database Service and Database in Collate. Hence, for each Data Source in Alation, there will be one Database Service and one Database in Collate.
• Custom fields will have a 1:1 mapping for all the entities except for Columns since Collate does not support custom properties for columns.
• Alation has two fields for descriptions i.e. descriptions and comments. These fields will be combined under one field description in Collate for all the entities.
• Utilize the databaseFilterPattern (datasource in Alation), schemaFilterPattern, and tableFilterPattern to apply filters to Alation entities. Provide the ids of the datasource, schemas, and tables for the Alation entities in the respective fields.

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Metadata Ingestion

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Step 1: Add New Service

1. In the left navigation, click Connections.
2. On the Connections page, click Add New Service.

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Step 2: Select a Service and Connector

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Step 3: Add Service Name and Description

• Enter a unique, descriptive Service Name. Collate identifies services by their service name. Enter a name that distinguishes this deployment from other Alation services you are ingesting metadata from.
• Optional: Enter a Description for the service.

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Step 4: Configure Connection Options

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Select Ingestion Runner

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Enter Connection Details

• hostPort: Host and port of the Alation instance.

host and port (https://xxxx.alationcloud.com:443)

• authType: The following authentication types are supported:

1. Basic Authentication: Collate uses the credentials to generate the access token required to authenticate Alation APIs

• username: Username of the user.
• password: Password of the user.

2. Access Token Authentication: The access token created using the steps in the Alation API authentication documentation can be entered directly. Collate uses it directly to authenticate the Alation APIs

• accessToken: Generated access token

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For Alation Backend Database Connection

1. Postgres Connection

• username: Specify the user to connect to Postgres. Make sure the user has select privileges on the tables of the Alation schema.
• password: Password to connect to Postgres.
• hostPort: Enter the fully qualified hostname and port number for your Postgres deployment in the Host and Port field.
• database: Initial Postgres database to connect to. Specify the name of the database associated with the Alation instance.

2. MySQL Connection

• username: Specify the user to connect to MySQL. Make sure the user has select privileges on the tables of the Alation schema.
• password: Password to connect to MySQL.
• hostPort: Enter the fully qualified hostname and port number for your MySQL deployment in the Host and Port field.
• databaseSchema: Initial MySQL database to connect to. Specify the name of the database schema associated with the Alation instance.
• projectName: Project name can be anything, for example Prod or Demo. It will be used while creating the tokens.
• paginationLimit: Pagination limit used for Alation APIs pagination. By default is set to 10.
• includeUndeployedDatasources: Specifies if undeployed datasources should be included while ingesting. By default is set to false.
• includeHiddenDatasources: Specifies if hidden datasources should be included while ingesting. By default is set to false.
• ingestUsersAndGroups: Specifies if users and groups should be included while ingesting. By default is set to true.
• ingestKnowledgeArticles: Specifies if knowledge articles should be included while ingesting. By default is set to true.
• ingestDatasources: Specifies if databases, schemas and tables should be included while ingesting. By default is set to true.
• ingestDomains: Specifies if domains and subdomains should be included while ingesting. By default is set to true.
• ingestDashboards: Specifies if BI sources and dashboards should be included while ingesting. By default is set to true.
• alationTagClassificationName: Specify the classification name under which the tags from Alation will be created in Collate. By default, it is set to alationTags.
• connectionArguments: These are additional parameters for Alation. If not specified the ingestion will use the predefined pagination logic. The following arguments are intended to be used in conjunction and are specifically for Alation DataSource APIs:
• skip: This parameter determines the count of records to bypass at the start of the dataset. When set to 0, as in this case, it means that no records will be bypassed. If set to 10, it will bypass the first 10 records.
• limit: This argument specifies the maximum number of records to return. Here, it’s set to 10, meaning only the first 10 records will be returned. To perform incremental ingestion, these arguments should be used together. For instance, if there are a total of 30 datasources in Alation, the ingestion can be configured to execute three times, with each execution ingesting 10 datasources.
• 1st execution: {"skip": 0, "limit": 10}
• 2nd execution: {"skip": 10, "limit": 10}
• 3rd execution: {"skip": 20, "limit": 10}

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Advanced Configuration

• Connection Options (Optional): Enter the details for any additional connection options that can be sent to database during the connection. These details must be added as Key-Value pairs.
• Connection Arguments (Optional): Enter the details for any additional connection arguments such as security or protocol configs that can be sent during the connection. These details must be added as Key-Value pairs.

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Test Connection

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Step 5: Configure Ingestion Options

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Configure Metadata Agent and Schedule Ingestion

1. In the left navigation, click Connections and select your service.
2. Click the Agents tab.
3. Click Add Agent and select Metadata from the dropdown. For some services, the dropdown is not available and clicking Add Agent takes you directly to the agent configuration page.
4. On the Configure Ingestion page, do the following and click Next.
   • Name this Ingestion: Enter a unique recognizable name for this ingestion pipeline.
   • Agent Setup: Configure the core parameters for this agent. The following fields are available:

     Field	Default	Description
     Default Owner	—	Default owner applied to all entities when no specific owner is configured. Accepts a user or team name/email.
     Service Owner	—	Owner assigned to the service entity.
     Database Owner	—	Owner assigned to all ingested databases. Accepts a single owner (user or team) for all databases.
     Database Schema Owner	—	Owner assigned to all ingested schemas. Accepts a single owner (user or team) for all schemas.
     Table Owner	—	Owner assigned to all ingested tables. Accepts a single owner (user or team) for all tables.
     Enable Inheritance	On	Enable child entities to inherit owner from parent entities when they don’t have a specific owner configured.
     Query Log Duration	1	Number of days to look back in query logs when processing stored procedure results.
     Query Parsing Timeout Limit	300	Timeout in seconds for parsing a single query.
     Number of Threads	1	Number of threads to use for parallel table ingestion.
     JSON Schema Sample Size	10	Number of rows to sample for inferring JSON schema. A larger sample size provides more accurate schema inference but increases query time.
     Extract JSON Schema	Off	Extract JSON schema from JSON columns by sampling data. Requires SELECT permission on the tables. If disabled or SELECT fails, JSON columns are ingested without schema information.

     
   • Filter Patterns: Apply include or exclude rules to scope which databases, schemas, tables, and stored procedures this agent ingests. These follow the same filter options described in Step 5.
   • Scope & Behaviour: Control what metadata to include and how to handle deletions. Toggle each option on or off based on your needs:

     Toggle	Default	Description
     Enable Debug Log	Off	Sets the ingestion log level to DEBUG. Useful for troubleshooting.
     Mark Deleted Tables	On	Soft-delete tables in Collate when they are removed from the source. Applies only within the currently ingested schema.
     Mark Deleted Stored Procedures	On	Soft-delete stored procedures in Collate when they are removed from the source. Associated entities like lineage are also deleted.
     Mark Deleted Schemas	Off	Soft-delete schemas and all their child assets when removed from the source.
     Mark Deleted Databases	Off	Soft-delete databases and all their child assets when removed from the source.
     Include Tables	On	Ingest table metadata from the source. Turn off to skip tables entirely.
     Include Tags	On	Ingest tags from the source.
     Include Custom Properties	Off	Ingest connector-specific custom properties onto entities.
     Include Owners	Off	Assign owners to ingested entities when the source owner’s email matches a user in Collate. Does not overwrite an existing owner.
     Include Stored Procedures	On	Ingest stored procedure metadata.
     Include DDL Statements	Off	Ingest DDL statements alongside table metadata.
     Override Metadata	Off	When on, source values overwrite existing descriptions, tags, owners, and display names in Collate. When off, Collate only updates fields that have no existing value.

     
5. On the Schedule Interval page, set when the agent runs:
   • Schedule: Choose a preset interval (Hourly, Daily, Weekly, Monthly) or enter a custom cron expression.
   • On-Demand: No automatic schedule; trigger the agent manually when needed.
   
6. Click Add to deploy the agent.

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Troubleshooting