Amazon Athena MySQL connector - Amazon Athena
PrerequisitesLimitationsTermsParametersData type supportPartitions and splitsPerformancePassthrough queriesLicense informationAdditional resources

Amazon Athena MySQL connector

The Amazon Athena Lambda MySQL connector enables Amazon Athena to access MySQL databases.

Prerequisites

Limitations

  • Write DDL operations are not supported.

  • In a multiplexer setup, the spill bucket and prefix are shared across all database instances.

  • Any relevant Lambda limits. For more information, see Lambda quotas in the AWS Lambda Developer Guide.

  • Because Athena converts queries to lower case, MySQL table names must be in lower case. For example, Athena queries against a table named myTable will fail.

Terms

The following terms relate to the MySQL connector.

  • Database instance – Any instance of a database deployed on premises, on Amazon EC2, or on Amazon RDS.

  • Handler – A Lambda handler that accesses your database instance. A handler can be for metadata or for data records.

  • Metadata handler – A Lambda handler that retrieves metadata from your database instance.

  • Record handler – A Lambda handler that retrieves data records from your database instance.

  • Composite handler – A Lambda handler that retrieves both metadata and data records from your database instance.

  • Property or parameter – A database property used by handlers to extract database information. You configure these properties as Lambda environment variables.

  • Connection String – A string of text used to establish a connection to a database instance.

  • Catalog – A non-AWS Glue catalog registered with Athena that is a required prefix for the connection_string property.

  • Multiplexing handler – A Lambda handler that can accept and use multiple database connections.

Parameters

Use the Lambda environment variables in this section to configure the MySQL connector.

Connection string

Use a JDBC connection string in the following format to connect to a database instance.

mysql://${jdbc_connection_string}
Note

If you receive the error java.sql.SQLException: Zero date value prohibited when doing a SELECT query on a MySQL table, add the following parameter to your connection string:

zeroDateTimeBehavior=convertToNull

For more information, see Error 'Zero date value prohibited' while trying to select from MySQL table on GitHub.com.

Using a multiplexing handler

You can use a multiplexer to connect to multiple database instances with a single Lambda function. Requests are routed by catalog name. Use the following classes in Lambda.

Handler Class
Composite handler MySqlMuxCompositeHandler
Metadata handler MySqlMuxMetadataHandler
Record handler MySqlMuxRecordHandler

Multiplexing handler parameters

Parameter Description
$catalog_connection_string Required. A database instance connection string. Prefix the environment variable with the name of the catalog used in Athena. For example, if the catalog registered with Athena is mymysqlcatalog, then the environment variable name is mymysqlcatalog_connection_string.
default Required. The default connection string. This string is used when the catalog is lambda:${AWS_LAMBDA_FUNCTION_NAME}.

The following example properties are for a MySql MUX Lambda function that supports two database instances: mysql1 (the default), and mysql2.

Property Value
default mysql://jdbc:mysql://mysql2.host:3333/default?user=sample2&password=sample2
mysql_catalog1_connection_string mysql://jdbc:mysql://mysql1.host:3306/default?${Test/RDS/MySql1}
mysql_catalog2_connection_string mysql://jdbc:mysql://mysql2.host:3333/default?user=sample2&password=sample2

Providing credentials

To provide a user name and password for your database in your JDBC connection string, you can use connection string properties or AWS Secrets Manager.

  • Connection String – A user name and password can be specified as properties in the JDBC connection string.

    Important

    As a security best practice, do not use hardcoded credentials in your environment variables or connection strings. For information about moving your hardcoded secrets to AWS Secrets Manager, see Move hardcoded secrets to AWS Secrets Manager in the AWS Secrets Manager User Guide.

  • AWS Secrets Manager – To use the Athena Federated Query feature with AWS Secrets Manager, the VPC connected to your Lambda function should have internet access or a VPC endpoint to connect to Secrets Manager.

    You can put the name of a secret in AWS Secrets Manager in your JDBC connection string. The connector replaces the secret name with the username and password values from Secrets Manager.

    For Amazon RDS database instances, this support is tightly integrated. If you use Amazon RDS, we highly recommend using AWS Secrets Manager and credential rotation. If your database does not use Amazon RDS, store the credentials as JSON in the following format:

    {"username": "${username}", "password": "${password}"}
Example connection string with secret name

The following string has the secret name ${Test/RDS/MySql1}.

mysql://jdbc:mysql://mysql1.host:3306/default?...&${Test/RDS/MySql1}&...

The connector uses the secret name to retrieve secrets and provide the user name and password, as in the following example.

mysql://jdbc:mysql://mysql1host:3306/default?...&user=sample2&password=sample2&...

Currently, the MySQL connector recognizes the user and password JDBC properties.

Using a single connection handler

You can use the following single connection metadata and record handlers to connect to a single MySQL instance.

Handler type Class
Composite handler MySqlCompositeHandler
Metadata handler MySqlMetadataHandler
Record handler MySqlRecordHandler

Single connection handler parameters

Parameter Description
default Required. The default connection string.

The single connection handlers support one database instance and must provide a default connection string parameter. All other connection strings are ignored.

The following example property is for a single MySQL instance supported by a Lambda function.

Property Value
default mysql://mysql1.host:3306/default?secret=Test/RDS/MySql1

Spill parameters

The Lambda SDK can spill data to Amazon S3. All database instances accessed by the same Lambda function spill to the same location.

Parameter Description
spill_bucket Required. Spill bucket name.
spill_prefix Required. Spill bucket key prefix.
spill_put_request_headers (Optional) A JSON encoded map of request headers and values for the Amazon S3 putObject request that is used for spilling (for example, {"x-amz-server-side-encryption" : "AES256"}). For other possible headers, see PutObject in the Amazon Simple Storage Service API Reference.

Data type support

The following table shows the corresponding data types for JDBC and Arrow.

JDBC Arrow
Boolean Bit
Integer Tiny
Short Smallint
Integer Int
Long Bigint
float Float4
Double Float8
Date DateDay
Timestamp DateMilli
String Varchar
Bytes Varbinary
BigDecimal Decimal
ARRAY List

Partitions and splits

Partitions are used to determine how to generate splits for the connector. Athena constructs a synthetic column of type varchar that represents the partitioning scheme for the table to help the connector generate splits. The connector does not modify the actual table definition.

Performance

MySQL supports native partitions. The Athena MySQL connector can retrieve data from these partitions in parallel. If you want to query very large datasets with uniform partition distribution, native partitioning is highly recommended.

The Athena MySQL connector performs predicate pushdown to decrease the data scanned by the query. LIMIT clauses, simple predicates, and complex expressions are pushed down to the connector to reduce the amount of data scanned and decrease query execution run time.

LIMIT clauses

A LIMIT N statement reduces the data scanned by the query. With LIMIT N pushdown, the connector returns only N rows to Athena.

Predicates

A predicate is an expression in the WHERE clause of a SQL query that evaluates to a Boolean value and filters rows based on multiple conditions. The Athena MySQL connector can combine these expressions and push them directly to MySQL for enhanced functionality and to reduce the amount of data scanned.

The following Athena MySQL connector operators support predicate pushdown:

  • Boolean: AND, OR, NOT

  • Equality: EQUAL, NOT_EQUAL, LESS_THAN, LESS_THAN_OR_EQUAL, GREATER_THAN, GREATER_THAN_OR_EQUAL, IS_DISTINCT_FROM, NULL_IF, IS_NULL

  • Arithmetic: ADD, SUBTRACT, MULTIPLY, DIVIDE, MODULUS, NEGATE

  • Other: LIKE_PATTERN, IN

Combined pushdown example

For enhanced querying capabilities, combine the pushdown types, as in the following example:

SELECT * 
FROM my_table 
WHERE col_a > 10 
    AND ((col_a + col_b) > (col_c % col_d))
    AND (col_e IN ('val1', 'val2', 'val3') OR col_f LIKE '%pattern%') 
LIMIT 10;

For an article on using predicate pushdown to improve performance in federated queries, including MySQL, see Improve federated queries with predicate pushdown in Amazon Athena in the AWS Big Data Blog.

Passthrough queries

The MySQL connector supports passthrough queries. Passthrough queries use a table function to push your full query down to the data source for execution.

To use passthrough queries with MySQL, you can use the following syntax:

SELECT * FROM TABLE(
        system.query(
            query => 'query string'
        ))

The following example query pushes down a query to a data source in MySQL. The query selects all columns in the customer table, limiting the results to 10.

SELECT * FROM TABLE(
        system.query(
            query => 'SELECT * FROM customer LIMIT 10'
        ))

License information

By using this connector, you acknowledge the inclusion of third party components, a list of which can be found in the pom.xml file for this connector, and agree to the terms in the respective third party licenses provided in the LICENSE.txt file on GitHub.com.

Additional resources

For the latest JDBC driver version information, see the pom.xml file for the MySQL connector on GitHub.com.

For additional information about this connector, visit the corresponding site on GitHub.com.