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Collector Method

About Collectors

Collectors are extractors that are developed and managed by you (a customer of K).

KADA provides python libraries that customers can use to quickly deploy a Collector.

Why you should use a Collector

There are several reasons why you may use a collector vs the direct connect extractor:

  1. You are using the KADA SaaS offering and it cannot connect to your sources due to firewall restrictions

  2. You want to push metadata to KADA rather than allow it to pull data for security reasons

  3. You want to inspect the metadata before pushing it to K

Using a collector requires you to manage:

  1. Deploying and orchestrating the extract code

  2. Managing a high water mark so the extract only pulls the latest metadata

  3. Storing and pushing the extracts to your K instance

Downloading the latest Collector and Core Library

The latest core library needs to be installed prior to deploying a Collector. You can download the latest Core Library and Collector whl via Platform Settings → Sources → Download Collectors.

Collector Server Minimum Specifications

For the collector to operate effectively, it will need to be deployed on a server with the below minimum specifications:

  • CPU: 2 vCPU

  • Memory: 8GB

  • Storage: 30GB (depends on historical data extracted)

  • OS: unix distro e.g. RHEL preferred but can also work with Windows Server

  • Python 3.10.x or later

  • Access to K landing directory

About Landing Directories

When using a Collector you will push metadata to a K landing directory.

To find your landing directory you will need to:

  1. Go to Platform Settings - Settings. Note down the value of this setting:

    • If using Azure: storage_azure_storage_account

    • If using AWS:

      • storage_root_folder - the AWS s3 bucket

      • storage_aws_region - the region where the AWS s3 bucket is hosted

  2. Go to Sources - Edit the Source you have configured. Note down the landing directory in the About this Source section.

To connect to the landing directory you will need:

  • If using Azure: a SAS token to push data to the landing directory. Request this from KADA Support (support@kada.ai)

  • If using AWS:

    • An Access key and Secret. Request this from KADA Support (support@kada.ai)

    • OR provide your IAM role to KADA Support to provision access.

Airflow Example

The following example is how you can orchestrate the Tableau collector using Airflow and push the files to K hosted on Azure. The code is not expected to be used as-is but as a template for your own DAG.

Python
# built-in
import os

# Installed
from airflow.operators.python_operator import PythonOperator
from airflow.models.dag import DAG
from airflow.operators.dummy import DummyOperator
from airflow.utils.dates import days_ago
from airflow.utils.task_group import TaskGroup

from plugins.utils.azure_blob_storage import AzureBlobStorage

from kada_collectors.extractors.utils import load_config, get_hwm, publish_hwm, get_generic_logger
from kada_collectors.extractors.tableau import Extractor

# To be configured by the customer.
# Note variables may change if using a different object store.
KADA_SAS_TOKEN = os.getenv("KADA_SAS_TOKEN")
KADA_CONTAINER = ""
KADA_STORAGE_ACCOUNT = ""
KADA_LANDING_PATH = "lz/tableau/landing"
KADA_EXTRACTOR_CONFIG = {
    "server_address": "http://tabserver",
    "username": "user",
    "password": "password",
    "sites": [],
    "db_host": "tabserver",
    "db_username": "repo_user",
    "db_password": "repo_password",
    "db_port": 8060,
    "db_name": "workgroup",
    "meta_only": False,
    "retries": 5,
    "dry_run": False,
    "output_path": "/set/to/output/path",
    "mask": True,
    "mapping": {}
}

# To be implemented by the customer.
# Upload to your landing zone storage.
# Change '.csv' to '.csv.gz' if you set compress = true in the config
def upload():
  output = KADA_EXTRACTOR_CONFIG['output_path']
  for filename in os.listdir(output):
      if filename.endswith('.csv'):
        file_to_upload_path = os.path.join(output, filename)

        AzureBlobStorage.upload_file_sas_token(
            client=KADA_SAS_TOKEN,
            storage_account=KADA_STORAGE_ACCOUNT,
            container=KADA_CONTAINER,
            blob=f'{KADA_LANDING_PATH}/{filename}',
            local_path=file_to_upload_path
        )

with DAG(dag_id="taskgroup_example", start_date=days_ago(1)) as dag:

    # To be implemented by the customer.
    # Retrieve the timestamp from the prior run
    start_hwm = 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:SS'
    end_hwm = 'YYYY-MM-DD HH:mm:SS' # timestamp now

    ext = Extractor(**KADA_EXTRACTOR_CONFIG)

    start = DummyOperator(task_id="start")

    with TaskGroup("taskgroup_1", tooltip="extract tableau and upload") as extract_upload:
        task_1 = PythonOperator(
            task_id="extract_tableau",
            python_callable=ext.run,
            op_kwargs={"start_hwm": start_hwm, "end_hwm": end_hwm},
            provide_context=True,
        )

        task_2 = PythonOperator(
            task_id="upload_extracts",
            python_callable=upload,
            op_kwargs={},
            provide_context=True,
        )

        # To be implemented by the customer.
        # Timestamp needs to be saved for next run
        task_3 = DummyOperator(task_id='save_hwm')

    end = DummyOperator(task_id='end')

    start >> extract_upload >> end