Amazon RDS MS SQL

Prerequisites

The MS SQL Server version is 2008 or higher.
If the Pipeline Mode is Change Tracking or Table, and the Query mode is Change Tracking:
- Change Tracking is enabled.
- CHANGE TRACKING and ALTER DATABASE privileges are granted to the database user.
Hevo’s IP addresses are whitelisted.
SELECT and VIEW CHANGE TRACKING privileges are granted to the database user.

Perform the following steps to configure your Amazon RDS MS SQL Source:

Enable Change Tracking

Note: This step is valid only for Pipelines with Change Tracking as their Pipeline Mode.

The Change Tracking mechanism captures changes made to a database. In order to enable, or disable change tracking, the database user must have the ALTER DATABASE privilege.

To enable change tracking, connect your Amazon RDS MS SQL database in your SQL Client tool, and enter these commands:

Enable change tracking at the database level:
```
 ALTER DATABASE <database_name> SET CHANGE_TRACKING = ON
 (CHANGE_RETENTION = 3 DAYS, AUTO_CLEANUP = ON)
```
The CHANGE_RETENTION value specifies the time period for which change tracking information is retained. You can use AUTO_CLEANUP to enable or disable the cleanup task that removes old change tracking information. Read Enable Change Tracking for a Database.
Enable change tracking at the table and schema level:
```
 ALTER TABLE <schema_name>.<table> ENABLE CHANGE_TRACKING
```
Repeat this step for each table you want to replicate using log-based incremental replication. Read Enable Change Tracking for a Table.

Note: Hevo does not support Change Data Capture (CDC) for Amazon RDS MS SQL.

Whitelist Hevo’s IP Addresses

You need to whitelist the Hevo IP addresses for your region to enable Hevo to connect to your Amazon RDS MS SQL database. To do this:

Open the Amazon RDS console.
In the left navigation pane, click Databases (or Instances if you are using an older version).
In the Databases section on the right, click the DB identifier of the Amazon RDS MS SQL instance.

Note: The instance does not necessarily have to be a replica as long as it whitelists Hevo’s IP address for the region.
In the Connectivity & security tab, ensure Public Accessibility is set to Yes.
Click the link text under Security, VPC security groups to open the Security Groups panel.
In the Security Groups panel, click Inbound rules tab, and then, Edit inbound rules.
In the Edit inbound rules page:
1. Click Add rule.
2. In the Port range column, enter the port of your Amazon RDS MS SQL instance. The default value is 1433.
3. In the Source column, select Custom from the drop-down and enter Hevo’s IP addresses for your region.
4. Click Save rules.
Click the Outbound rules tab, and then, Edit outbound rules.
Repeat step 7, to configure Outbound Rules.

Create a User and Grant Privileges

1. Create a user (optional)

To create a database user, log in to your Amazon RDS MS SQL instance as a masteruser in your SQL Client tool, and enter these commands:

Select a database schema
```
USE <schema_name>;
```

Create a database user:

CREATE LOGIN hevo WITH PASSWORD = '<enter_password>';
CREATE USER hevo for login hevo;

Note: Skip this step if you are using an existing database user.

2. Grant privileges to the user

The database user specified in the Hevo Pipeline must have the following global privileges:

SELECT
VIEW CHANGE TRACKING (If Pipeline Mode is Change Tracking or Table, and Query mode is Change Tracking)

To assign these privileges, log in to your Amazon RDS MS SQL instance as a masteruser in your SQL Client tool and enter the following commands:

Grant SELECT privilege at the database level:

GRANT SELECT ON DATABASE::<database> TO <db_username>;

Grant SELECT privilege at the table and schema level:

GRANT SELECT ON <schema_name>.<table_name> TO <db_username>;

Grant VIEW CHANGE TRACKING privilege, if Pipeline Mode is Change Tracking or Table, and Query mode is Change Tracking:
```
GRANT VIEW CHANGE TRACKING ON <schema_name>.<table_name> TO <username>;
```

Specify Amazon RDS SQL Server Connection Settings

Specify the following settings in the Configure your Amazon RDS SQL Server Source page:

Pipeline Name: A unique name for the Pipeline.

SQL Server Host: SQL Server host’s IP address or DNS.

The following table lists a few examples of SQL Server host:

Variant	Host
Amazon RDS MS SQL	ms-sql-server-1.xxxxx.rds.amazonaws.com
Azure MS SQL	mssql.database.windows.net
Generic MS SQL	10.123.10.001 or mssql.westeros.inc
Google Cloud SQL Server	35.220.150.0

Note: For URL-based hostnames, exclude the http:// or https:// part. For example, if the hostname URL is https://mssql.database.windows.net, enter mssql.database.windows.net.

SQL Server Port: The port on which your SQL Server is listening for connections. Default value: 1433.
SQL Server User: The read-only user that can read the tables in your database.
SQL Server Password: Password for the read-only user.
Database Name: The database that you wish to replicate.
Schema Name: The schema that holds the tables to be replicated. Default value: dbo.
Connect through SSH: Enable this option to connect to Hevo using an SSH tunnel, instead of directly connecting your SQL Server database host to Hevo. This provides an additional level of security to your database by not exposing your SQL Server setup to the public. Read Connecting Through SSH.

If this option is disabled, you must whitelist Hevo’s IP addresses. Refer to the content for your SQL Server variant for steps to do this.
Advanced Settings:
- Include New Tables in the Pipeline: Applicable for all Pipeline modes except Custom SQL.
  
  If enabled, Hevo automatically ingests data from tables created in the Source after the Pipeline has been built. These may include completely new tables or previously deleted tables that have been re-created in the Source.
  
  If disabled, new and re-created tables are not ingested automatically. They are added in SKIPPED state in the objects list, in the Pipeline Overview page. You can update their status to INCLUDED to ingest data.
  
  You can change this setting later.

Limitations

Hevo does not support Change Data Capture (CDC) for Amazon RDS MS SQL.

Revision History

Refer to the following table for the list of key updates made to this page:

Date	Release	Description of Change
Jan-03-2022	1.79	Updated the description of the Include New Tables in the Pipeline advance setting in the Specify Amazon RDS SQL Server Connection Settings section.
Sep-08-2021	NA	Updated the second list item under Prerequisites and corrected the numbering of sections.
Jul-26-2021	1.68	Added a note for the SQL Server Host field.
Jul-12-2021	NA	Added section, Specify Amazon RDS SQL Server Connection Settings.
Mar-09-2021	1.58	Replaced references to Logical Replication with Change Tracking as Change Tracking is a distinct Pipeline mode for SQL Server Source types.
Feb-22-2021	1.57	Added section Create a User and Grant Privileges.

Last updated on 07 Jan 2022