Docs Home → MongoDB Connector for BI
mongosqld
is the BI Connector program which connects your MongoDB instance to your BI tool.
mongosqld
requires a data schema which maps to your MongoDB collections and databases. You have several options for creating a schema and launching mongosqld
. This guide will help you choose the best option for your needs.
By default,
mongosqld
generates a data schema and holds it in memory. Alternatively, if you prefer to create a schema file and edit it manually, use the
mongodrdl
program to create a .drdl
schema file and use the --schema
option when starting
mongosqld
. For more information on schema generation and data sampling, see Map Relational Schemas to MongoDB.
Install BI Connector
There are three options for launching and running mongosqld
. You can:
Run
mongosqld
as a hosted service with MongoDB AtlasStart
mongosqld
from the command lineInstall
mongosqld
as a system service
You can host the MongoDB Connector for Business Intelligence in MongoDB Atlas. To learn how to enable and connect to an Atlas-hosted BI Connector, see Connect via BI Connector for Atlas.
You can use command line options to specify collections and databases to sample, user credentials, and other configuration options. For a complete list of command line options, see Command Line Options.
To start mongosqld
from the command line, run the mongosqld
executable in the BI Connector program directory with any necessary command line options.
Note
mongosqld
defaults to port 3307
. You can set the port number manually by providing the --addr
option with the host address and port.
You can use a
configuration file to hold all your mongosqld
configuration options. Start mongosqld
with the --config
option to specify a configuration file.
BI Connector requires a configuration file with the mongosqld.systemLog.path
setting specified
when running as a system service. Using your preferred text editor, create a mongosqld.conf
file. To review the configuration file options, see Configuration File. For example:
Once BI Connector is up and running, you are ready to begin using it with your preferred BI tool. See Connect BI Tools for a selected list of connection tutorials.
Docs Home → MongoDB Connector for BI
Estimated Time to Complete: ~15 minutes
This guide provides step-by-step instructions to quickly set up the required components for the BI Connector on your local system using a ODBC driver.
This guide is recommended for users who would like to experiment with the BI Connector or create a local environment for development or testing on Microsoft Windows.
In this tutorial you will:
Start a local MongoDB mongod process
Start a local BI Connector mongosqld process
Install the ODBC driver and create a data source name [DSN]
Connect with a BI tool of your choice
MongoDB installed on your local system. Download the latest production release of MongoDB from the MongoDB Download Center and install it. For detailed instructions, see Install MongoDB.
MongoDB Connector for BI installed on your local system. Download the latest production release of BI Connector from the MongoDB Download Center and install it. For detailed installation instructions, see Install BI Connector On Premises.
The MongoDB BI Connector ODBC Driver installed on your local system.
Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio 2015
A BI tool of your choice, such as Power BI or Qlik Sense.
If mongod is not already running on your local system, start it from the command line in the MongoDB program directory. You can create the default data directory at "C:\Program Files\MongoDB\Server\3.6\bin\mongod.exe"C:\data\db
or specify a different directory with the
--dbpath
option.
Make sure your MongoDB instance has at least one collection with some data for testing purposes. A sample dataset with United States ZIP code information [3.2 MB] is available at media.mongodb.org/zips.json.
Note
To save the ZIP code dataset directly to disk, right click
on the link and select "Save Link As..."
This tutorial assumes that the saved file is in the directory C:\data
.
Import the dataset into MongoDB. The following command imports the zips.json
file into a collection named zips
in a database named test
:
"C:\Program Files\MongoDB\Server\3.6\bin\mongoimport.exe" --db test --collection zips --file "C:\data\zips.json"
See the MongoDB manual for help with mongoimport, the mongo shell program, and CRUD operations.
Start a mongosqld
process from the command line in the BI
Connector program directory.
"C:\Program Files\MongoDB\Connector for BI\2.3\bin\mongosqld.exe"
With no command line options, mongosqld
generates a schema from all the user-accessible collections in your MongoDB instance. For more information about specifying database namespaces for BI Connector to work with, see the mongosqld
reference page.
If mongosqld
starts correctly, the last line of on-screen output
declares the namespaces it has found for its schema. For example, the following output indicates that mongosqld
started correctly and sampled the zips
namespace.
[schemaDiscovery] mapped schema for 1 namespaces: "test" [1]: ["zips"]
Create a System DSN by following instructions in the tutorial. For the purposes of this local test installation you can leave the
User, Password and Authentication fields blank, because mongosqld
is running without the --auth
option.
When you press the Test button you should see the Connection Successful result.