Connect Database

Getting started#

The first step to use Holistics is to connect the platform to your reporting database/data warehouse.

To add a new data source, please access the Data Sources management page from the drop-down menu on the top right of the screen:

Click "New Data Source", choose your Database Type and start filling in details of your database connection. For example, this is the screen for PostgreSQL:

Supported Databases#

Holistics supports most common SQL databases, including:

  • MySQL
  • PostgreSQL and its flavors
  • Oracle
  • BigQuery
  • Amazon Redshift
  • ...

We also support a number of popular third-party data sources for data importing and visualization. Please visit Supported Databases for the full list.

What if I don't have a dedicated reporting database/data warehouse?#

If that is the case, you can consider:

  1. Connect directly to your production database or replica. However, we recommend against doing so because of potential performance issues.
  2. Set up a Google BigQuery data warehouse in under 3 minutes, and connect it to Holistics. BigQuery stores the first 10 GB and processes 1 TB of queried data per month for free.

My database is behind a private network. What should I do?#

If your database is not accessible from a public network (it is either behind a firewall or in a private network), consider the following options:

What if I want to connect to a local database?#

You may need to expose your database to allow Holistics' server connect via the Internet connection, or using Reverse SSH Tunnel. To do so, please follow the steps in Set up Reverse SSH Tunnels.

How do I only allow Holistics read-only permission to my database?#

When connecting Holistics to your database, you can reuse a read-only user in your database. However, we recommend creating a new database user to use exclusively for Holistics. Please refer to Create Holistics DB User page for detailed instruction on creating users and granting permissions.