Virtual Data Sources

Alation Cloud Service Applies to Alation Cloud Service instances of Alation

Customer Managed Applies to customer-managed instances of Alation

A virtual data source is a data source that isn’t connected to the actual source. Virtual data sources make it possible to catalog data sources in the following circumstances:

  • Alation doesn’t provide a designated connector for the data source

  • You can’t establish a network connection to the database

  • You can’t gain the required level of privileges to access the database from Alation

A virtual data source is populated with metadata using one of following methods, depending on the type of data source:

  • For NoSQL data sources, use APIs to upload metadata in JSON format

  • For RDBMS data sources, upload metadata from a CSV file

This section describes how to add, populate, and view a virtual data source.