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Version: current [26.x]

Microsoft SQL Server

This topic provides Microsoft SQL Server data source setup and configuration information.

Supported Versions​

Dremio supports Microsoft SQL Server 2012 and later.

note

Ensure that your Dremio cluster has access to the appropriate port for your Microsoft SQL Server source. By default, this is port 1433.

Initial Connection​

Depending on the number of tables in your SQL Server source, the final step of adding it to Dremio can take anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes as the source's metadata is processed. However, this is a one-time cost and further queries to the source will not incur additional metadata reads.

User Impersonation​

The Microsoft SQL Server username provided in the source configuration is the default username that is used for running queries. When queries are run against Microsoft SQL Server in Dremio, users use the privileges associated with the Microsoft SQL Server username and run queries under that username.

You can change this default in Dremio by enabling user impersonation in the Advanced Options, which allows users to run queries under their own usernames and restricts their access. For example, user_1 can run queries as user_1 rather than sqlsvr_svc. Before enabling user impersonation, some setup is required in Microsoft SQL Server to allow one user to impersonate another user because the username of the user in Dremio must be the same as their username in Microsoft SQL Server and the user must be able to connect through the Microsoft SQL Server username.

note

Reflections are not supported on data sources with user impersonation enabled to ensure that all security and governance policies defined in the underlying data source are enforced. Reflections created prior to enabling user impersonation must be manually dropped, as they will fail to refresh once impersonation is active.

To set up user impersonation, follow these steps:

  1. Ensure the user's username in Microsoft SQL Server matches their username in Dremio. If the usernames do not match, modify one of the usernames or create a new user account with a matching username.

  2. Run a GRANT IMPERSONATE command in Microsoft SQL Server to allow the user to connect through their Microsoft SQL Server username:

Example of granting impersonate privilege in Microsoft SQL Server 
GRANT IMPERSONATE ON USER::testuser1 TO proxyuser;

In this example, the user can log in as testuser1 in Dremio and in Microsoft SQL Server, and they can connect through the proxyuser. The proxyuser is the Microsoft SQL Server username provided in the source configuration.

  1. Log in to Dremio as a member of the ADMIN role.

  2. Follow the steps for Configuring Microsoft SQL Server as a Source using the Microsoft SQL Server username proxyuser and enable User Impersonation in the Advanced Options.

  3. Grant source privileges to the user.

Now that you have enabled user impersonation, a user who logs in to Dremio with their username can access the Microsoft SQL Server source and its datasets according to their privileges. The user can also run queries against Microsoft SQL Server under their username.

Configuring Microsoft SQL Server as a Source​

  1. On the Datasets page, to the right of Sources in the left panel, click This is the Add Source icon..
  2. In the Add Data Source dialog, under Databases, select Microsoft SQL Server.

General​

Name​

Enter the name to identify the data source in Dremio. The name cannot include the following special characters: /, :, [, or ].

Connection​

Describe the SQL Server instance used in this connection.

  • Host: The SQL Server host name or IP address.
  • Port (Optional): The SQL Server port number. If you do not specify a port number, the SQL Server instance is queried to retrieve the port that the named instance is listening on.
  • Database (Optional): The database instance name

Authentication​

Select an authentication option:

  • No Authentication: Connects without credentials. Only use when the SQL Server allows anonymous connections or when network-level security controls access.
  • Master Credentials (default):
    • Username: Enter the Microsoft SQL Server username
    • Secret Store: Select the password secret store from the dropdown menu:
      • Dremio: Provide the password in plain text. Dremio stores the password.
      • Azure Key Vault: Provide the URI for your stored secret using the format https://<vault_name>.vault.azure.net/secrets/<secret_name>
      • AWS Secrets Manager: Provide the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) for the AWS Secrets Manager secret that holds the password, which is available in the AWS web console or using command line tools.
      • HashiCorp Vault: Select your HashiCorp secrets engine from the dropdown and enter the secret reference in the required format.
  • Microsoft Entra ID: To register a Microsoft Entra ID application and obtain the required IDs and client secret, see How to register an app in Microsoft Entra ID, then complete the Dremio configuration:
    • Tenant ID: Enter the unique identifier of your Microsoft Entra ID tenant.
    • Application ID: Enter the application (client) ID
    • Application Secret: Select the application secret store from the dropdown menu:
      • Dremio: Provide the application secret in plain text. Dremio stores the password.
      • Azure Key Vault: Provide the URI for your stored secret using the format https://<vault_name>.vault.azure.net/secrets/<secret_name>
      • AWS Secrets Manager: Provide the Amazon Resource Name (ARN) for the AWS Secrets Manager secret that holds the application secret, which is available in the AWS web console or using command line tools.
      • HashiCorp Vault: Select your HashiCorp secrets engine from the dropdown and enter the secret reference in the required format.
  • Azure Managed Identity (Azure-hosted SQL Server): Passwordless authentication using Azure's managed identity service, eliminating credential management overhead.
    1. Create a managed identity, system-assigned or user-assigned for your SQL Server.
    2. Attach the managed identity to your Dremio AKS cluster's Virtual Machine Scale Set (VMSS)
    3. Configure the Dremio source:
      • When using a user-assigned managed identity, add the Client ID to the Dremio source configuration.
      • When using a system-assigned managed identity, leave the Client ID blank.

Select the Encrypt connection option to encrypt the connection to Microsoft SQL Server. Clear the checkbox to disable encryption.

Advanced Options​

  • Show only the initial database used for connecting: If selected, hides the other DBs that the credential has access to.
  • Record fetch size: Number of records to fetch at once. Set to 0 (zero) to have Dremio automatically decide. Default: 10
  • Maximum idle connections: The total number of connections allowed to be idle at a given time. By default, this is set to 8.
  • Connection idle time (s): The amount of time (in seconds) allowed for a connection to remain idle before the connection is terminated. By default, this is set to 60.
  • Query timeout: The amount of time (in seconds) allowed to wait for the results of a query. If this time expires, the connection being used is returned to an idle state.
  • Enable legacy dialect

Reflection Refresh​

  • Never refresh -- Specifies how often to refresh based on hours, days, weeks, or never.
  • Never expire -- Specifies how often to expire based on hours, days, weeks, or never.

Metadata​

Dataset Handling​

  • Remove dataset definitions if underlying data is unavailable (Default).
    If this box is not checked and the underlying files under a folder are removed or the folder/source is not accessible, Dremio does not remove the dataset definitions. This option is useful in cases when files are temporarily deleted and put back in place with new sets of files.

Metadata Refresh​

  • Dataset Discovery -- Refresh interval for top-level source object names such as names of DBs and tables.
    • Fetch every -- Specify fetch time based on minutes, hours, days, or weeks. Default: 1 hour
  • Dataset Details -- The metadata that Dremio needs for query planning such as information needed for fields, types, shards, statistics, and locality.
    • Fetch mode -- Specify either Only Queried Datasets, All Datasets, or As Needed. Default: Only Queried Datasets
      • Only Queried Datasets -- Dremio updates details for previously queried objects in a source.
        This mode increases query performance because less work is needed at query time for these datasets.
      • All Datasets -- Dremio updates details for all datasets in a source. This mode increases query performance because less work is needed at query time.
      • As Needed -- Dremio updates details for a dataset at query time. This mode minimized metadata queries on a source when not used, but might lead to longer planning times.
    • Fetch every -- Specify fetch time based on minutes, hours, days, or weeks. Default: 1 hour
    • Expire after -- Specify expiration time based on minutes, hours, days, or weeks. Default: 3 hours

Privileges​

On the Privileges tab, you can grant privileges to specific users or roles. See Access Controls for additional information about privileges. All privileges are optional.

  1. For Privileges, enter the user name or role name that you want to grant access to and click the Add to Privileges button. The added user or role is displayed in the USERS/ROLES table.
  2. For the users or roles in the USERS/ROLES table, toggle the checkmark for each privilege you want to grant on the Dremio source that is being created.
  3. Click Save after setting the configuration.

Updating a Microsoft SQL Server Source​

To update a Microsoft SQL Server source:

  1. On the Datasets page, under Databases in the panel on the left, find the name of the source you want to update.
  2. Right-click the source name and select Settings from the list of actions. Alternatively, click the source name and then the The Settings icon at the top right corner of the page.
  3. In the Source Settings dialog, edit the settings you wish to update. Dremio does not support updating the source name. For information about the settings options, see Configuring Microsoft SQL Server as a Source.
  4. Click Save.

Deleting a Microsoft SQL Server Source​

note

If the source is in a bad state (for example, Dremio cannot authenticate to the source or the source is otherwise unavailable), only users who belong to the ADMIN role can delete the source.

To delete a Microsoft SQL Server source, perform these steps:

  1. On the Datasets page, click Sources > Databases in the panel on the left.
  2. In the list of data sources, hover over the name of the source you want to remove and right-click.
  3. From the list of actions, click Delete.
  4. In the Delete Source dialog, click Delete to confirm that you want to remove the source.
note

Deleting a source causes all downstream views that depend on objects in the source to break.

Predicate Pushdowns​

Dremio delegates the execution of these expressions and functions to the database being queried, often dramatically improving query performance. It can also offload entire SQL queries that include one or more of these expressions and functions.

*, +, -, /, %
<, <=, <>, =, >, >=, !=
AND, NOT, OR, ||
ABS
ACOS
ADD_MONTHS
ASIN
ATAN
ATAN2
AVG
CAST
CEIL
CEILING
CHAR_LENGTH
CHARACTER_LENGTH
CONCAT
COS
COT
DATE_ADD
DATE_SUB
DATE_TRUNC_DAY
DATE_TRUNC_HOUR
DATE_TRUNC_MINUTE
DATE_TRUNC_MONTH
DATE_TRUNC_YEAR
DEGREES
E
EXP
EXTRACT_DAY
EXTRACT_DOW
EXTRACT_DOY
EXTRACT_HOUR
EXTRACT_MINUTE
EXTRACT_MONTH
EXTRACT_QUARTER
EXTRACT_SECOND
EXTRACT_WEEK
EXTRACT_YEAR
FLOOR
IS DISTINCT FROM
IS NOT DISTINCT FROM
IS NOT NULL
IS NULL
LAST_DAY
LCASE
LEFT
LENGTH
LIKE
LN
LOCATE
LOG
LOG10
LOWER
LPAD
LTRIM
MAX
MEDIAN
MIN
MOD
MONTH
PERCENT_CONT
PERCENT_DISC
PI
POSITION
POW
POWER
RADIANS
RAND
REPLACE
REVERSE
RIGHT
ROUND
RPAD
RTRIM
SIGN
SIN
SQRT
SUBSTR
SUBSTRING
SUM
TAN
TIMESTAMPADD_DAY
TIMESTAMPADD_HOUR
TIMESTAMPADD_MINUTE
TIMESTAMPADD_MONTH
TIMESTAMPADD_QUARTER
TIMESTAMPADD_SECOND
TIMESTAMPADD_YEAR
TIMESTAMPDIFF_DAY
TIMESTAMPDIFF_HOUR
TIMESTAMPDIFF_MINUTE
TIMESTAMPDIFF_MONTH
TIMESTAMPDIFF_QUARTER
TIMESTAMPDIFF_SECOND
TIMESTAMPDIFF_WEEK
TIMESTAMPDIFF_YEAR
TO_DATE
TRIM
TRUNC
TRUNCATE
UCASE
UPPER
YEAR

note

Since Microsoft SQL Server has no Boolean type, project operations that contain SQL expressions which evaluate to true or false (e.g., SELECT username, friends > 0), and filter operations that include Boolean literals in a filter (e.g., WHERE currentAccount = true) cannot be executed as pushdowns.

Running Queries Directly on SQL Server Through Dremio​

Dremio users can pass queries through Dremio to run on SQL Server. Doing so can sometimes decrease query execution times. For more information, see Querying Relational-Database Sources Directly.

For More Information​