Run the Alation Sink Connector Externally

Use YAML to configure AlationSink metadata ingestion and push terms to Alation catalogs.

In this section, we provide guides and references to use the Alation Sink connector. Configure and schedule Alation Sink metadata using the yaml:

• Requirements
• Data Mapping and Assumptions
• Metadata Ingestion

How to Run the Connector Externally

To run the Ingestion via the UI you’ll need to use the OpenMetadata Ingestion Container, which comes shipped with custom Airflow plugins to handle the workflow deployment.

If, instead, you want to manage your workflows externally on your preferred orchestrator, you can check the following docs to run the Ingestion Framework anywhere.

External Schedulers

Get more information about running the Ingestion Framework Externally

Requirements

The connector uses POST requests to write the data into Alation. Hence, an user credentials or an access token with Source Admin or Catalog Admin or Server Admin permissions will be required. Follow the link here to create the access token.

Data Mapping and Assumptions

Following entities are supported and will be mapped to the from OpenMetadata to the entities in Alation.

Alation Entity	OpenMetadata Entity
Data Source (OCF)	Database
Schema	Schema
Table	Table
Columns	Columns

Python Requirements

We have support for Python versions 3.9-3.11

To run the Alation Sink ingestion, you will need to install:

pip3 install "openmetadata-ingestion[alationsink]"

Metadata Ingestion

All connectors are defined as JSON Schemas. Here you can find the structure to create a connection to Alation Sink. In order to create and run a Metadata Ingestion workflow, we will follow the steps to create a YAML configuration able to connect to the source, process the Entities if needed, and reach the OpenMetadata server. The workflow is modeled around the following JSON Schema

1. Define the YAML Config

2. Run with the CLI

First, we will need to save the YAML file. Afterward, and with all requirements installed, we can run:

metadata ingest -c <path-to-yaml>

Note that from connector to connector, this recipe will always be the same. By updating the YAML configuration, you will be able to extract metadata from different sources.