Preparing for Installation

To ensure a rapid and successful installation, your team will need to prepare by gathering key information from internal resources and performing pre-configuration setup tasks.

Examples include procuring a system on which you will install Alation, gathering information on database versions, creating service accounts with the right permissions, and completing the necessary setup for Alation to ingest query logs from your source systems.

System Preparation

For the system you provide, you will need:

  • System sizing requirements and specifications

  • Understanding of your network environment

  • User authentication requirements in your environment

Database Connection Preparation

For each Database make sure you have:

  • Connectivity Verified:  Appropriate ports opened on the firewall between Alation and your database servers

  • Confirmed Version support for all components

  • Confirmed Authentication Type support for all components

  • Service Account created

  • Permissions to run Metadata Extraction

  • Permissions to run Sampling and Profiling

  • Query log setup specific to each DB (see Adding Data Sources)

BI Tool and Other System Connection Preparation

For each BI Tool or other system, confirm the following:

  • Service accounts with appropriate permissions

  • Connectivity verified

  • Version support

  • If you are going to use any OCF Connectors

Alation Analytics V2

Alation Analytics V2 is a solution which provides a way for Alation Administrators to monitor the usage of the Alation Catalog. Alation Analytics V2 can be installed on a remote host - separately from the Alation Catalog, which is recommended by Alation. For more details, refer to Alation Analytics V2.

Open Connector Framework

Available from 2020.4

Open Connector Framework is a solution which provides a way to support external connectors. From release 2020.4, Alation supports OCF for BI sources with a number of out-of-the-box BI connectors. From 2021.3, Alation supports OCF for RDBMS sources and offers a number of out of the box RDBMS connectors. It is recommended to install the OCF components on the same server with the Alation application. For more details, refer to Open Connector Framework.