News In Transformation UI

Here's a list of things that have changed in last couple weeks, in case you didn't notice in the UI directly.

No Custom Credentials

Support for custom transformation or sandbox credentials was dropped in the UI. Everything in the UI is provisioned. You can still use your own credentials using the API.

Input Mapping Within Redshift

When adding an input mapping in a Redshift transformation from a Redshift (Storage) backend, the engine chooses the fastest data transfer route. As the transformations and storage share the same cluster, the table never leaves the database and is transferred directly within the cluster. You have an additional option to set, if the input mapping is performed as a CREATE VIEW or CREATE TABLE from the original table. View is faster (there is no data transfer at all), but might cause memory issues, if you start piling up views on top of each other, table is slower (the data is duplicated), but may perform better on larger set of queries.

Also COPY Options pane disappeared from input mappings within Redshift, they didn't make any sense there.

Note: Be careful with mismatching datatypes.

Sandbox Credentials

Sandbox Credentials page now shows both MySQL and Redshift credentials with all their details. 

Running Processes

You can now terminate both MySQL and Redshift processes. 

Note: Terminating a database process is not immediate, it might take some time - there are some rollbacks on the backend.

Note: Running a Redshift transformation uses both MySQL and Redshift credentials. Terminating any of them will end the transformation.


Redshift Integration: Release Preview

Last couple months we've been working hard to deliver this new exciting feature. The day is very close, but we'd like to invite you to our release preview. Until the end of August we're running Redshift as Beta or Release Preview, polishing bugs and delivering the best possible user experience and performance boost. 

To get started with Redshift, you need to create a Redshift bucket in your Storage. The Storage API console allows this or contact support@keboola.com. Once you have at least one Redshift bucket in your storage (you don't need to store any data in there), the provisioning, transformations and other features will unlock.

You can create transformations (and sandboxes) that use AWS Redshift as their backend. Your current MySQL transformations are incompatible, but the Redshift SQL syntax is very similar. In the input mappings there are some new options (SORTKEY, DISTKEY, COPY command options, datatypes), that are Redshift specific. To take full advantage of our next steps we'd recommend that your Redshift transformations use data from Redshift storage buckets - this will basically eliminate all input and output transfers. But you can use data from regular buckets as well. 

For a Redshift sandbox your Sequel Pro or the native Adminer app are unfortunately useless. You can use the free version of JackDB web app, the Amazon recommended  SQL Workbench/J, DBeaver or 0xDBE. Always be careful to use only the schema provided you in the credentials.

During this Release Preview period the usage is free without any guarantee, contact support@keboola.com for production deployment during this period. Be careful with big data loads to non-production cluster. As a rule of thumb don't use it for anything >10G (all tables combined). 

GoodData Writer now uses Project Model API

All newly created writers will use GoodData's Project Model API by default (also known as LDM API). Existing projects still use the CL tool but will be switched in near future.

New writers also don't use date facts in datasets referencing date dimensions (this does not apply for time dimensions). Counting without Date facts is covered by "Date Attribute Arithmetic". Older projects have reports built upon these facts and can't be switched automatically so far.

TAPI-A Outage

Our transformation server TAPI-A went down due to a spike in bid price. We transferred all transformations to another server and will be resuming TAPI-A shortly. Sorry for any inconvenience, we will re-run all canceled operations.

Storage API outage

Our Storage API servers were offline from 2:33 UTC to 6:47 UTC of July 21th, 2014. We're still identifying main roots of this outage now, but servers are up and running. You can expect slow performance for next 1~2 hours. All nightly jobs failed. 

We let you down and we know it. We take our responsibilities — and the trust you place in us — very seriously. I cannot express how sorry I am to those of you who were inconvenienced. 

Please, contact us at support@keboola.com in case you have any trouble, we'd like to assist you!