Interfaces Introduction

You can connect to Apache Drill through the following interfaces:

  • Drill shell
  • Drill Web UI
  • ODBC*
  • JDBC**
  • C++ API

*Apache Drill does not have an open source ODBC driver. However, MapR provides an ODBC driver developed specifically for connecting Apache Drill to BI tools. MapR also provides a JDBC driver.

**By default, Drill returns a result set when you issue DDL statements, such as CTAS and CREATE VIEW. If the client tool from which you connect to Drill (via JDBC) does not expect a result set when you issue DDL statements, set the exec.query.return_result_set_for_ddl option to false, as shown, to prevent the client from canceling queries:

SET `exec.query.return_result_set_for_ddl` = false
//This option is available in Drill 1.15 and later.

When set to false, Drill returns the affected rows count, and the result set is null.

Using ODBC to Access Apache Drill from BI Tools

MapR provides an ODBC driver that connects Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux to Apache Drill and BI tools. Install the latest version of Apache Drill with the latest version of the MapR Drill ODBC driver.

Access the latest MapR Drill ODBC drivers at ODBC driver.

Using JDBC to Access Apache Drill from SQuirreL

You can connect to Drill through a JDBC client tool, such as SQuirreL, on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X systems, to access all of your data sources registered with Drill. You can use the Drill JDBC driver provided by MapR, or the embedded JDBC driver included with Drill.

Configure the JDBC driver in the SQuirreL client to connect to Drill from SQuirreL. This section provides instruction for connecting to Drill from SQuirreL on Windows.

To use the Drill JDBC driver with SQuirreL on Windows, complete the following steps:

For information about how to use SQuirreL, refer to the SQuirreL Quick Start guide.