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Copy data from Amazon Redshift using Azure Data Factory or Synapse Analytics

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APPLIES TO: Azure Data Factory Azure Synapse Analytics

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This article outlines how to use the Copy Activity in Azure Data Factory and Synapse Analytics pipelines to copy data from an Amazon Redshift. It builds on the copy activity overview article that presents a general overview of copy activity.

Supported capabilities

This Amazon Redshift connector is supported for the following capabilities:

Supported capabilities IR
Copy activity (source/-) ① ②
Lookup activity ① ②

① Azure integration runtime ② Self-hosted integration runtime

For a list of data stores that are supported as sources or sinks by the copy activity, see the Supported data stores table.

Specifically, this Amazon Redshift connector supports retrieving data from Redshift using query or built-in Redshift UNLOAD support.

The connector supports the Windows versions in this article.

Tip

To achieve the best performance when copying large amounts of data from Redshift, consider using the built-in Redshift UNLOAD through Amazon S3. See Use UNLOAD to copy data from Amazon Redshift section for details.

Prerequisites

Getting started

To perform the Copy activity with a pipeline, you can use one of the following tools or SDKs:

Create a linked service to Amazon Redshift using UI

Use the following steps to create a linked service to Amazon Redshift in the Azure portal UI.

  1. Browse to the Manage tab in your Azure Data Factory or Synapse workspace and select Linked Services, then click New:

  2. Search for Amazon and select the Amazon Redshift connector.

    Select the Amazon Redshift connector.

  3. Configure the service details, test the connection, and create the new linked service.

    Configure a linked service to Amazon Redshift.

Connector configuration details

The following sections provide details about properties that are used to define Data Factory entities specific to Amazon Redshift connector.

Linked service properties

The following properties are supported for Amazon Redshift linked service:

Property Description Required
type The type property must be set to: AmazonRedshift Yes
server IP address or host name of the Amazon Redshift server. Yes
port The number of the TCP port that the Amazon Redshift server uses to listen for client connections. No, default is 5439
database Name of the Amazon Redshift database. Yes
username Name of user who has access to the database. Yes
password Password for the user account. Mark this field as a SecureString to store it securely, or reference a secret stored in Azure Key Vault. Yes
connectVia The Integration Runtime to be used to connect to the data store. You can use Azure Integration Runtime or Self-hosted Integration Runtime (if your data store is located in private network). If not specified, it uses the default Azure Integration Runtime. No

Example:

JSON 
{
    "name": "AmazonRedshiftLinkedService",
    "properties":
    {
        "type": "AmazonRedshift",
        "typeProperties":
        {
            "server": "<server name>",
            "database": "<database name>",
            "username": "<username>",
            "password": {
                "type": "SecureString",
                "value": "<password>"
            }
        },
        "connectVia": {
            "referenceName": "<name of Integration Runtime>",
            "type": "IntegrationRuntimeReference"
        }
    }
}

Dataset properties

For a full list of sections and properties available for defining datasets, see the datasets article. This section provides a list of properties supported by Amazon Redshift dataset.

To copy data from Amazon Redshift, the following properties are supported:

Property Description Required
type The type property of the dataset must be set to: AmazonRedshiftTable Yes
schema Name of the schema. No (if "query" in activity source is specified)
table Name of the table. No (if "query" in activity source is specified)
tableName Name of the table with schema. This property is supported for backward compatibility. Use schema and table for new workload. No (if "query" in activity source is specified)

Example

JSON 
{
    "name": "AmazonRedshiftDataset",
    "properties":
    {
        "type": "AmazonRedshiftTable",
        "typeProperties": {},
        "schema": [],
        "linkedServiceName": {
            "referenceName": "<Amazon Redshift linked service name>",
            "type": "LinkedServiceReference"
        }
    }
}

If you were using RelationalTable typed dataset, it is still supported as-is, while you are suggested to use the new one going forward.

Copy activity properties

For a full list of sections and properties available for defining activities, see the Pipelines article. This section provides a list of properties supported by Amazon Redshift source.

Amazon Redshift as source

To copy data from Amazon Redshift, set the source type in the copy activity to AmazonRedshiftSource. The following properties are supported in the copy activity source section:

Property Description Required
type The type property of the copy activity source must be set to: AmazonRedshiftSource Yes
query Use the custom query to read data. For example: select * from MyTable. No (if "tableName" in dataset is specified)
redshiftUnloadSettings Property group when using Amazon Redshift UNLOAD. No
s3LinkedServiceName Refers to an Amazon S3 to-be-used as an interim store by specifying a linked service name of "AmazonS3" type. Yes if using UNLOAD
bucketName Indicate the S3 bucket to store the interim data. If not provided, the service generates it automatically. Yes if using UNLOAD

Example: Amazon Redshift source in copy activity using UNLOAD

JSON 
"source": {
    "type": "AmazonRedshiftSource",
    "query": "<SQL query>",
    "redshiftUnloadSettings": {
        "s3LinkedServiceName": {
            "referenceName": "<Amazon S3 linked service>",
            "type": "LinkedServiceReference"
        },
        "bucketName": "bucketForUnload"
    }
}

Learn more on how to use UNLOAD to copy data from Amazon Redshift efficiently from next section.

Use UNLOAD to copy data from Amazon Redshift

UNLOAD is a mechanism provided by Amazon Redshift, which can unload the results of a query to one or more files on Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3). It is the way recommended by Amazon for copying large data set from Redshift.

Example: copy data from Amazon Redshift to Azure Synapse Analytics using UNLOAD, staged copy and PolyBase

For this sample use case, copy activity unloads data from Amazon Redshift to Amazon S3 as configured in "redshiftUnloadSettings", and then copy data from Amazon S3 to Azure Blob as specified in "stagingSettings", lastly use PolyBase to load data into Azure Synapse Analytics. All the interim format is handled by copy activity properly.

Redshift to Azure Synapse Analytics copy workflow

JSON 
"activities":[
    {
        "name": "CopyFromAmazonRedshiftToSQLDW",
        "type": "Copy",
        "inputs": [
            {
                "referenceName": "AmazonRedshiftDataset",
                "type": "DatasetReference"
            }
        ],
        "outputs": [
            {
                "referenceName": "AzureSQLDWDataset",
                "type": "DatasetReference"
            }
        ],
        "typeProperties": {
            "source": {
                "type": "AmazonRedshiftSource",
                "query": "select * from MyTable",
                "redshiftUnloadSettings": {
                    "s3LinkedServiceName": {
                        "referenceName": "AmazonS3LinkedService",
                        "type": "LinkedServiceReference"
                    },
                    "bucketName": "bucketForUnload"
                }
            },
            "sink": {
                "type": "SqlDWSink",
                "allowPolyBase": true
            },
            "enableStaging": true,
            "stagingSettings": {
                "linkedServiceName": "AzureStorageLinkedService",
                "path": "adfstagingcopydata"
            },
            "dataIntegrationUnits": 32
        }
    }
]

Data type mapping for Amazon Redshift

When copying data from Amazon Redshift, the following mappings are used from Amazon Redshift data types to interim data types used internally within the service. See Schema and data type mappings to learn about how copy activity maps the source schema and data type to the sink.

Amazon Redshift data type Interim service data type
BIGINT Int64
BOOLEAN String
CHAR String
DATE DateTime
DECIMAL Decimal
DOUBLE PRECISION Double
INTEGER Int32
REAL Single
SMALLINT Int16
TEXT String
TIMESTAMP DateTime
VARCHAR String

Lookup activity properties

To learn details about the properties, check Lookup activity.

Related content

For a list of data stores supported as sources and sinks by the copy activity, see supported data stores.