Configuring an external database engine for Omniscope Evo

Omniscope Evo bundles its own managed instance of a columnar database (MonetDb) to power the analytical queries required by dashboards and reports. If you wish to reconfigure Omniscope to use an external database as its data engine, here's how.

This is experimental functionality and not fully supported; Omniscope does not support all database vendors. It's best to use a columnar database for larger datasets, to have good query performance.

Warning: Omniscope will use the database connection to automatically create and drop its own tables as you execute workflows and create reports. You should not use a database already containing important/production data.

Instructions

You'll need the JDBC connection details for the external database, and the JDBC driver JAR file downloaded ready. 

Using a plain text editor, create a JSON file called externalDbEngine.json with the following contents (or use the file attached to this page):

{
    "driverJar": "/path/to/postgresql-42.2.10.jar",
    "driverClass": "org.postgresql.Driver",
    "jdbcUrl": "jdbc:postgresql://HOST:PORT/DATABASE",
    "username": "USERNAME",
    "password": "PASSWORD"
}

Start or restart Omniscope Evo, and visit http://127.0.0.1:24679/_admin_/dataengine/ to view and select available data engines, including a new "External" option that will appear. After changing your data engine choice, restart Omniscope Evo again. Check the page again, and also check the main log for startup errors: http://127.0.0.1:24679/_admin_/logs/server?tail=10000.

To test, create a new Omniscope project, link some data to a report block, execute, and explore your data in the report.

Feedback welcome. Tales of success, or problems you need help with - please don't hesitate to get in touch by emailing [email protected].