Overview

Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation

Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation

Enhanced Connector Enhanced connectors add extended capabilities and require a separate entitlement in addition to your Alation platform license.

The Alation MaxCompute Connector is an enterprise-grade connector that enables comprehensive metadata extraction and lineage analysis from Alibaba Cloud MaxCompute data warehouses. Built using the Alation OCF (Open Connector Framework) RDBMS SDK, this connector uses the MaxCompute OpenAPI and DataWorks Public API for metadata and lineage extraction.

The connector is available as a Zip file that can be uploaded and installed in the Alation application.

To get the enhanced connector for MaxCompute, contact your Alation Account Manager.

Supported MaxCompute Versions

The connector supports Alibaba Cloud MaxCompute across all regions.

Component

Supported Versions

MaxCompute OpenAPI

Version 2022-01-04 and later

DataWorks Public API

Version 2024-05-18 and later

Supported Regions

The connector supports the following Alibaba Cloud regions:

Region

Region Codes

China

cn-beijing, cn-hangzhou, cn-shanghai, cn-shenzhen, cn-hongkong

US

us-east-1, us-west-1

Asia Pacific

ap-southeast-1, ap-southeast-2, ap-southeast-3, ap-southeast-5, ap-northeast-1

Europe

eu-central-1, eu-west-1

Middle East

me-east-1

Key Features

Metadata Extraction

The connector extracts the following metadata from MaxCompute:

  • Projects

  • Internal and External Tables

  • Views and Materialized Views

  • Columns

  • User-Defined Functions (UDFs)

For detailed object mappings, see Configure Metadata Extraction.

Lineage Extraction

The connector extracts lineage relationships using the DataWorks Public API:

  • Table-Level Lineage: Explicit table-to-table relationships via DataWorks ListLineages API

  • Column-Level Lineage: Column-to-column relationships for detailed data flow tracking

  • ETL Task Information: DataWorks task metadata displayed as Dataflow objects in Alation

Data Profiling

The connector supports data sampling and profiling via JDBC:

  • Table-level profiling (row counts, sample data)

  • Column-level profiling (statistics, value distributions)

Compose Integration

The connector supports query execution through Alation Compose using MaxCompute JDBC.

Query Log Ingestion (QLI)

The connector extracts query history from MaxCompute to enable:

  • Popularity: Table and column usage frequency based on query history

  • Top Users: Most active users querying specific tables

  • Filter Information: Columns commonly used in WHERE clauses

  • Join Information: Tables and columns commonly used in JOIN operations

QLI uses the tenant-level SYSTEM_CATALOG.INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TASKS_HISTORY view for cross-project query extraction.

Scope

The connector supports the following capabilities:

Feature

Supported

Metadata Extraction (MDE)

Yes

Table-Level Lineage

Yes

Column-Level Lineage

Yes (optional)

Data Profiling

Yes

Compose (Query Execution)

Yes

Query Log Ingestion (QLI)

Yes

Limitations

  • QLI requires the infoschema_admin role at the MaxCompute tenant level.

  • Column lineage extraction requires DataWorks permissions and may increase extraction time.

  • Rate limiting may be required for large environments to avoid API throttling.