To use Looker with Actian Avalanche or Vector, you will need to configure an Ingres driver. These instructions describe that process, assuming use of a startup script that is similar to the examples that are provided on the looker-open-source GitHub page.
You will need to acquire an Ingres driver JAR, include it as part of the startup process, and add an option to tell Looker to access it.
Encrypting network traffic
It is a best practice to encrypt network traffic between the Looker application and your database. Consider one of the options described on the Enabling secure database access documentation page.
Installing the Ingres JDBC driver
Follow the steps on the Unpackaged JDBC drivers documentation page using the following values:
driver symbol: ingres
driver entry:
- name: ingres
dir_name: ingres
module_path: com.ingres.jdbc.IngresDriver
For the step to put the driver in your dialect's directory, the path to this file will look like this: looker/custom_jdbc_drivers/ingres/iijdbc.jar.
Creating the Looker connection to your database
Follow these steps to create the connection from Looker to your database:
- In the Admin section of Looker, select Connections, and then click Add Connection.
Select Actian Avalanche or Vector from the Dialect drop-down menu.
Fill out the connection details. The majority of the settings are common to most database dialects. See the Connecting Looker to your database documentation page for information.
To verify that the connection is successful, click Test. See the Testing database connectivity documentation page for troubleshooting information.
To save these settings, click Connect.
Enabling PDT support
It is possible to use persistent derived tables (PDTs) on your database using the PDT Overrides section in the Connection Settings page.
To enable PDTs:
Create a PDT user in your database for use with the scratch schema, for example
looker_scratch.Create a group in your database such as
looker_pdt_group.Add both the regular Looker user and the Looker PDT user to the new group.
GRANT SELECT on all tables in the regular Looker user's schema to the PDT user.
In the Looker Connection Settings page, in the PDT Overrides section, enter the PDT user information.
The PDT user then runs a GRANT SELECT to the
looker_pdt_groupfor every table it creates.
Feature support
For Looker to support some features, your database dialect must also support them.
Actian Avalanche
Actian Avalanche supports the following features as of Looker 24.6:
| Feature | Supported? |
|---|---|
| Support Level | Supported |
| Looker (Google Cloud core) | No |
| Symmetric Aggregates | Yes |
| Derived Tables | Yes |
| Persistent SQL Derived Tables | Yes |
| Persistent Native Derived Tables | Yes |
| Stable Views | Yes |
| Query Killing | Yes |
| SQL-based Pivots | Yes |
| Timezones | No |
| SSL | No |
| Subtotals | No |
| JDBC Additional Params | Yes |
| Case Sensitive | Yes |
| Location Type | Yes |
| List Type | Yes |
| Percentile | No |
| Distinct Percentile | No |
| SQL Runner Show Processes | No |
| SQL Runner Describe Table | Yes |
| SQL Runner Show Indexes | Yes |
| SQL Runner Select 10 | Yes |
| SQL Runner Count | Yes |
| SQL Explain | No |
| Oauth Credentials | No |
| Context Comments | Yes |
| Connection Pooling | No |
| HLL Sketches | No |
| Aggregate Awareness | Yes |
| Incremental PDTs | No |
| Milliseconds | Yes |
| Microseconds | Yes |
| Materialized Views | No |
| Approximate Count Distinct | No |
Vector
Vector supports the following features as of Looker 24.6:
| Feature | Supported? |
|---|---|
| Support Level | Supported |
| Looker (Google Cloud core) | No |
| Symmetric Aggregates | Yes |
| Derived Tables | Yes |
| Persistent SQL Derived Tables | Yes |
| Persistent Native Derived Tables | Yes |
| Stable Views | Yes |
| Query Killing | Yes |
| SQL-based Pivots | Yes |
| Timezones | No |
| SSL | No |
| Subtotals | No |
| JDBC Additional Params | Yes |
| Case Sensitive | Yes |
| Location Type | Yes |
| List Type | Yes |
| Percentile | No |
| Distinct Percentile | No |
| SQL Runner Show Processes | No |
| SQL Runner Describe Table | Yes |
| SQL Runner Show Indexes | Yes |
| SQL Runner Select 10 | Yes |
| SQL Runner Count | Yes |
| SQL Explain | No |
| Oauth Credentials | No |
| Context Comments | Yes |
| Connection Pooling | No |
| HLL Sketches | No |
| Aggregate Awareness | Yes |
| Incremental PDTs | No |
| Milliseconds | Yes |
| Microseconds | Yes |
| Materialized Views | No |
| Approximate Count Distinct | No |