Vertica Integration with Yellowfin: Connection Guide

About Vertica Connection Guides

Vertica connection guides provide basic instructions for connecting a third-party partner product to Vertica. Connection guides are based on our testing with specific versions of Vertica and the partner product.

Vertica and Yellowfin: Latest Versions Tested

This document provides guidance using the versions of Vertica and Yellowfin described as follows:

Software Version
Partner Client

Yellowfin 8.0.0

Desktop Platform

Windows Server 2012 R2

Vertica Client

Vertica JDBC driver 9.2.0-0

Vertica Server

Vertica 9.2.2-0

Yellowfin Overview

Yellowfin is a business intelligence tool that supports analytics, collaborative BI, mobile access, and geospatial mapping as well as data visualization and reporting.

Yellowfin can access data stored in relational databases, multi-dimensional cubes, and in-memory analytical databases. With Yellowfin, you can build personalized and interactive dashboards that are immediately accessible on mobile devices or in a web browser. Yellowfin provides native apps for iPhone and iPad and an HTML 5 hybrid app for Android.

For more information about Yellowfin, visit the Yellowfin website. To start learning about Yellowfin, see the Yellowfin documentation.

Install Yellowfin

Yellowfin is available for download on the Yellowfin website. Before you download Yellowfin:

  1. Check the Installation Prerequisites.
  2. If JRE 7 or higher is not installed on your system, click download to download the JRE.
  3. If you already have a valid Yellowfin license, click the checkbox for A Valid Yellowfin License.

To download and install a free, evaluation copy of Yellowfin:

  1. Navigate to the Yellowfin homepage.
  2. Click Try It Free.
  3. Supply the required information and click Submit.
  4. Follow the installation instructions.

Install the Vertica Client Driver

Before you can connect to Vertica using Yellowfin, you must install the Vertica JDBC driver. Follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to the Vertica Client Drivers page.
  2. Download the Vertica JDBC driver package.

    Note  

    For details about client and server compatibility, see Client Driver and Server Version Compatibility in the Vertica documentation.

  3. Follow the installation instructions in the Vertica documentation.

Connect Vertica to Yellowfin

Create a Connection

  1. After you install the Yellowfin software, go to the Yellowfin installation directory:
    Installation_Location_Yellowfin_8.0.0/appserver/bin
  2. Double-click the Yellowfin batch file to start the Yellowfin services.

  3. Place the Vertica JDBC jar file, vertica-jdbc-9.2.0-0.jar, in the following location:

    Installation_Location_Yellowfin_8.0.0/appserver/webapps/ROOT/WEB-INF/lib
  4. Double-click the Yellowfin batch file to restart the Yellowfin services.
  5. Open a web browser and type the following URL: http://server-IP:8080
  6. Specify the following credentials and click Login:

    Username: admin@yellowfin.com.au

    Password : test

    YellowfinConnecting.png

  7. On the default Yellowfin screen, click the plus sign (+)

    YellowFinGraph.png

  8. Select Data Source from the Create menu.

    YellowfinDataSource.png

  9. Select Create a data source connection using JDBC.

    SelectDataSource.png

  10. Specify the connection details.

  11. In the Advanced Connection editor, select Test Connection.

Create a View

  1. When the connection is successful, return to the default screen and select View from the Create menu.

    ViewDataSource.png

  2. Under Select Data Source, select Vmart, the Vertica data source.

    CreateNewView.png

  3. Select a table from the Vertica database, specify a name for the new view and click Create Analysis.

    CreateNewViewCustomer.png

  4. Create the view using the dimensions and measures of the selected table.

    CustomerDim.png

Known Limitations

INTERVAL Data Types

Yellowfin 8.0.0 does not support the INTERVAL data types in Vertica. To load INTERVAL data, set the column format in Yellowfin to Raw Formatter.

BINARY Data Types

Null values of type BINARY, VARBINARY, and LONGVARBINARY in Vertica are successfully loaded into Yellowfin. However, non-null values of these types are not loaded.

UUID Data Type

Yellowfin 8.0.0 does not support the UUID data type in Vertica. To load UUID data, set the column format in Yellowfin to Raw Formatter

Time, Timestamp, TimestampTz and TimeTz Data Types

Seconds are truncated in Typical and Low values of Time, Timestamp, TimeTz, TimestampTz data types. To display these data types with the seconds and milliseconds, set the Time Format of the column to H:mm:ss:S in Yellowfin.

Decimal Data Type

Some Max, Min and [1234.567890] values of Decimal data type are rounded off to two decimal places. To display the complete Decimal values, set the column format to Raw Formatter or Reference Code in Yellowfin.

FLOAT Data Types

By default, the value is either not displayed or is rounded to 2 digits after the decimal point. Workaround is to set the column format to Raw Formatter or Reference Code in Yellowfin.

For information about the Vertica FLOAT data type, see Double Precision (FLOAT) in the Vertica documentation.

For More Information

For more information, see the following: