SQL Server connector

The SQL Server connector allows querying and creating tables in an external Microsoft SQL Server database. This can be used to join data between different systems like SQL Server and Hive, or between two different SQL Server instances.

Requirements

To connect to SQL Server, you need:

SQL Server 2012 or higher, or Azure SQL Database.
Network access from the Trino coordinator and workers to SQL Server. Port 1433 is the default port.

Configuration

The connector can query a single database on an SQL server instance. Create a catalog properties file that specifies the SQL server connector by setting the connector.name to sqlserver.

For example, to access a database as sqlserver, create the file etc/catalog/sqlserver.properties. Replace the connection properties as appropriate for your setup:

connector.name=sqlserver
connection-url=jdbc:sqlserver://<host>:<port>;database=<database>;encrypt=false
connection-user=root
connection-password=secret

The connection-url defines the connection information and parameters to pass to the SQL Server JDBC driver. The supported parameters for the URL are available in the SQL Server JDBC driver documentation.

The connection-user and connection-password are typically required and determine the user credentials for the connection, often a service user. You can use secrets to avoid actual values in the catalog properties files.

Connection security

The JDBC driver, and therefore the connector, automatically use Transport Layer Security (TLS) encryption and certificate validation. This requires a suitable TLS certificate configured on your SQL Server database host.

If you do not have the necessary configuration established, you can disable encryption in the connection string with the encrypt property:

connection-url=jdbc:sqlserver://<host>:<port>;database=<database>;encrypt=false

Further parameters like trustServerCertificate, hostNameInCertificate, trustStore, and trustStorePassword are details in the TLS section of SQL Server JDBC driver documentation.

Multiple SQL Server databases or servers

The SQL Server connector can only access a single SQL Server database within a single catalog. Thus, if you have multiple SQL Server databases, or want to connect to multiple SQL Server instances, you must configure multiple instances of the SQL Server connector.

To add another catalog, simply add another properties file to etc/catalog with a different name, making sure it ends in .properties. For example, if you name the property file sales.properties, Trino creates a catalog named sales using the configured connector.

General configuration properties

The following table describes general catalog configuration properties for the connector:

Property name	Description	Default value
`case-insensitive-name-matching`	Support case insensitive schema and table names.	`false`
`case-insensitive-name-matching.cache-ttl`		`1m`
`case-insensitive-name-matching.config-file`	Path to a name mapping configuration file in JSON format that allows Trino to disambiguate between schemas and tables with similar names in different cases.	`null`
`case-insensitive-name-matching.refresh-period`	Frequency with which Trino checks the name matching configuration file for changes.	`0` (refresh disabled)
`metadata.cache-ttl`	Duration for which metadata, including table and column statistics, is cached.	`0` (caching disabled)
`metadata.cache-missing`	Cache the fact that metadata, including table and column statistics, is not available	`false`
`metadata.cache-maximum-size`	Maximum number of objects stored in the metadata cache	`10000`
`write.batch-size`	Maximum number of statements in a batched execution. Do not change this setting from the default. Non-default values may negatively impact performance.	`1000`

Specific configuration properties

The SQL Server connector supports additional catalog properties to configure the behavior of the connector and the issues queries to the database.

Property name	Description
`sqlserver.snapshot-isolation.disabled`	Control the automatic use of snapshot isolation for transactions issued by Trino in SQL Server. Defaults to `false`, which means that snapshot isolation is enabled.

Procedures

system.flush_metadata_cache()
Flush JDBC metadata caches. For example, the following system call flushes the metadata caches for all schemas in the example catalog
```
USE example.myschema;
CALL system.flush_metadata_cache();
```

Case insensitive matching

When case-insensitive-name-matching is set to true, Trino is able to query non-lowercase schemas and tables by maintaining a mapping of the lowercase name to the actual name in the remote system. However, if two schemas and/or tables have names that differ only in case (such as "customers" and "Customers") then Trino fails to query them due to ambiguity.

In these cases, use the case-insensitive-name-matching.config-file catalog configuration property to specify a configuration file that maps these remote schemas/tables to their respective Trino schemas/tables:

{
  "schemas": [
    {
      "remoteSchema": "CaseSensitiveName",
      "mapping": "case_insensitive_1"
    },
    {
      "remoteSchema": "cASEsENSITIVEnAME",
      "mapping": "case_insensitive_2"
    }],
  "tables": [
    {
      "remoteSchema": "CaseSensitiveName",
      "remoteTable": "tablex",
      "mapping": "table_1"
    },
    {
      "remoteSchema": "CaseSensitiveName",
      "remoteTable": "TABLEX",
      "mapping": "table_2"
    }]
}

Queries against one of the tables or schemes defined in the mapping attributes are run against the corresponding remote entity. For example, a query against tables in the case_insensitive_1 schema is forwarded to the CaseSensitiveName schema and a query against case_insensitive_2 is forwarded to the cASEsENSITIVEnAME schema.

At the table mapping level, a query on case_insensitive_1.table_1 as configured above is forwarded to CaseSensitiveName.tablex, and a query on case_insensitive_1.table_2 is forwarded to CaseSensitiveName.TABLEX.

By default, when a change is made to the mapping configuration file, Trino must be restarted to load the changes. Optionally, you can set the case-insensitive-name-mapping.refresh-period to have Trino refresh the properties without requiring a restart:

case-insensitive-name-mapping.refresh-period=30s

Non-transactional INSERT

The connector supports adding rows using INSERT statements </sql/insert>. By default, data insertion is performed by writing data to a temporary table. You can skip this step to improve performance and write directly to the target table. Set the insert.non-transactional-insert.enabled catalog property or the corresponding non_transactional_insert catalog session property to true.

Note that with this property enabled, data can be corrupted in rare cases where exceptions occur during the insert operation. With transactions disabled, no rollback can be performed.

Querying SQL Server

The SQL Server connector provides access to all schemas visible to the specified user in the configured database. For the following examples, assume the SQL Server catalog is sqlserver.

You can see the available schemas by running SHOW SCHEMAS:

SHOW SCHEMAS FROM sqlserver;

If you have a schema named web, you can view the tables in this schema by running SHOW TABLES:

SHOW TABLES FROM sqlserver.web;

You can see a list of the columns in the clicks table in the web database using either of the following:

DESCRIBE sqlserver.web.clicks;
SHOW COLUMNS FROM sqlserver.web.clicks;

Finally, you can query the clicks table in the web schema:

SELECT * FROM sqlserver.web.clicks;

If you used a different name for your catalog properties file, use that catalog name instead of sqlserver in the above examples.

Type mapping

Because Trino and SQL Server each support types that the other does not, this connector modifies some types when reading or writing data. Data types may not map the same way in both directions between Trino and the data source. Refer to the following sections for type mapping in each direction.

SQL Server type to Trino type mapping

The connector maps SQL server types to the corresponding Trino types following this table:

SQL Server type to Trino type mapping
SQL Server database type	Trino type	Notes
`BIT`	`BOOLEAN`
`TINYINT`	`SMALLINT`	SQL Server `TINYINT` is actually`unsigned tinyint`
`SMALLINT`	`SMALLINT`
`INTEGER`	`INTEGER`
`BIGINT`	`BIGINT`
`DOUBLE PRECISION`	`DOUBLE`
`FLOAT[(n)]`	`REAL` or `DOUBLE`	See SQL Server
`REAL`	`REAL`
`DECIMAL[(p[, s])]`, `NUMERIC[(p[, s])]`	`DECIMAL(p, s)`
`CHAR[(n)]`	`CHAR(n)`	`1 <= n <= 8000`
`NCHAR[(n)]`	`CHAR(n)`	`1 <= n <= 4000`
`VARCHAR[(n \| max)]`,`NVARCHAR[(n \| max)]`	`VARCHAR(n)`	`1 <= n <= 8000`,`max = 2147483647`
`TEXT`	`VARCHAR(2147483647)`
`NTEXT`	`VARCHAR(1073741823)`
`VARBINARY[(n \| max)]`	`VARBINARY`	`1 <= n <= 8000`,`max = 2147483647`
`DATE`	`DATE`
`TIME[(n)]`	`TIME(n)`	`0 <= n <= 7`
`DATETIME2[(n)]`	`TIMESTAMP(n)`	`0 <= n <= 7`
`SMALLDATETIME`	`TIMESTAMP(0)`
`DATETIMEOFFSET[(n)]`	`TIMESTAMP(n) WITH TIME ZONE`	`0 <= n <= 7`

Trino type to SQL Server type mapping

The connector maps Trino types to the corresponding SQL Server types following this table:

Trino type to SQL Server type mapping
Trino type	SQL Server type	Notes
`BOOLEAN`	`BIT`
`TINYINT`	`TINYINT`	Trino only supports writing values belonging to`[0, 127]`
`SMALLINT`	`SMALLINT`
`INTEGER`	`INTEGER`
`BIGINT`	`BIGINT`
`REAL`	`REAL`
`DOUBLE`	`DOUBLE PRECISION`
`DECIMAL(p, s)`	`DECIMAL(p, s)`
`CHAR(n)`	`NCHAR(n)` or `NVARCHAR(max)`	See SQL Server
`VARCHAR(n)`	`NVARCHAR(n)` or `NVARCHAR(max)`	See SQL Server
`VARBINARY`	`VARBINARY(max)`
`DATE`	`DATE`
`TIME(n)`	`TIME(n)`	`0 <= n <= 7`
`TIMESTAMP(n)`	`DATETIME2(n)`	`0 <= n <= 7`

Complete list of SQL Server data types.

Numeric type mapping

For SQL Server FLOAT[(n)]:

If n is not specified maps to Trino Double
If 1 <= n <= 24 maps to Trino REAL
If 24 < n <= 53 maps to Trino DOUBLE

Character type mapping

For Trino CHAR(n):

If 1 <= n <= 4000 maps SQL Server NCHAR(n)
If n > 4000 maps SQL Server NVARCHAR(max)

For Trino VARCHAR(n):

If 1 <= n <= 4000 maps SQL Server NVARCHAR(n)
If n > 4000 maps SQL Server NVARCHAR(max)

Type mapping configuration properties

The following properties can be used to configure how data types from the connected data source are mapped to Trino data types and how the metadata is cached in Trino.

Property name Description Default value

Property name	Description	Default value
`unsupported-type-handling`	Configure how unsupported column data types are handled: `IGNORE`, column is not accessible. `CONVERT_TO_VARCHAR`, column is converted to unbounded`VARCHAR`. The respective catalog session property is`unsupported_type_handling`.	`IGNORE`
`jdbc-types-mapped-to-varchar`	Allow forced mapping of comma separated lists of data types to convert to unbounded `VARCHAR`

unsupported-type-handling

Configure how unsupported column data types are handled:

IGNORE, column is not accessible.
CONVERT_TO_VARCHAR, column is converted to unboundedVARCHAR.

The respective catalog session property isunsupported_type_handling.

IGNORE

jdbc-types-mapped-to-varchar Allow forced mapping of comma separated lists of data types to convert to unbounded VARCHAR

SQL support

The connector provides read access and write access to data and metadata in SQL Server. In addition to the globally available and read operation statements, the connector supports the following features:

INSERT
DELETE
TRUNCATE
sql-schema-table-management

SQL DELETE

If a WHERE clause is specified, the DELETE operation only works if the predicate in the clause can be fully pushed down to the data source.

ALTER TABLE

The connector does not support renaming tables across multiple schemas. For example, the following statement is supported:

ALTER TABLE catalog.schema_one.table_one RENAME TO catalog.schema_one.table_two

The following statement attempts to rename a table across schemas, and therefore is not supported:

ALTER TABLE catalog.schema_one.table_one RENAME TO catalog.schema_two.table_two

Performance

The connector includes a number of performance improvements, detailed in the following sections.

Table statistics

The SQL Server connector can use table and column statistics for cost based optimizations, to improve query processing performance based on the actual data in the data source.

The statistics are collected by SQL Server and retrieved by the connector.

The connector can use information stored in single-column statistics. SQL Server Database can automatically create column statistics for certain columns. If column statistics are not created automatically for a certain column, you can create them by executing the following statement in SQL Server Database.

CREATE STATISTICS my_statistics_name ON table_schema.table_name (column_name);

SQL Server Database routinely updates the statistics. In some cases, you may want to force statistics update (e.g. after defining new column statistics or after changing data in the table). You can do that by executing the following statement in SQL Server Database.

UPDATE STATISTICS table_schema.table_name;

Refer to SQL Server documentation for information about options, limitations and additional considerations.

Pushdown

The connector supports pushdown for a number of operations:

Pushdown
Pushdown
Pushdown

Aggregate pushdown for the following functions:

avg
count
max
min
sum
stddev
stddev_pop
stddev_samp
variance
var_pop
var_samp

Cost-based join pushdown

The connector supports cost-based join-pushdown to make intelligent decisions about whether to push down a join operation to the data source.

When cost-based join pushdown is enabled, the connector only pushes down join operations if the available /optimizer/statistics suggest that doing so improves performance. Note that if no table statistics are available, join operation pushdown does not occur to avoid a potential decrease in query performance.

The following table describes catalog configuration properties for join pushdown:

Property name	Description	Default value
`join-pushdown.enabled`	Enable `join pushdown <join-pushdown>`. Equivalent `catalog session property <session-properties-definition>` is`join_pushdown_enabled`.	`true`
`join-pushdown.strategy`	Strategy used to evaluate whether join operations are pushed down. Set to `AUTOMATIC` to enable cost-based join pushdown, or`EAGER` to push down joins whenever possible. Note that`EAGER` can push down joins even when table statistics are unavailable, which may result in degraded query performance. Because of this, `EAGER` is only recommended for testing and troubleshooting purposes.	`AUTOMATIC`

Predicate pushdown support

The connector does not support pushdown of any predicates on columns with textual types <string-data-types> like CHAR or VARCHAR. This ensures correctness of results since the data source may compare strings case-insensitively.

In the following example, the predicate is not pushed down for either query since name is a column of type VARCHAR:

SELECT * FROM nation WHERE name > 'CANADA';
SELECT * FROM nation WHERE name = 'CANADA';

Bulk insert

You can optionally use the bulk copy API to drastically speed up write operations.

Enable bulk copying and a lock on the destination table to meet minimal logging requirements.

The following table shows the relevant catalog configuration properties and their default values:

Bulk load properties
Property name	Description	Default
`sqlserver.bulk-copy-for-write.enabled`	Use the SQL Server bulk copy API for writes. The corresponding catalog session property is `bulk_copy_for_write`.	`false`
`sqlserver.bulk-copy-for-write.lock-destination-table`	Obtain a bulk update lock on the destination table for write operations. The corresponding catalog session property is`bulk_copy_for_write_lock_destination_table`. Setting is only used when `bulk-copy-for-write.enabled=true`.	`false`

Limitations:

Column names with leading and trailing spaces are not supported.

Data compression

You can specify the data compression policy for SQL Server tables with the data_compression table property. Valid policies are NONE, ROW or PAGE.

Example:

CREATE TABLE myschema.scientists (
  recordkey VARCHAR,
  name VARCHAR,
  age BIGINT,
  birthday DATE
)
WITH (
  data_compression = 'ROW'
);

SQL Server connector

Requirements​

Configuration​

Connection security​

Multiple SQL Server databases or servers​

General configuration properties​

Specific configuration properties​

Procedures​

Case insensitive matching​

Non-transactional INSERT​

Querying SQL Server​

Type mapping​

SQL Server type to Trino type mapping​

Trino type to SQL Server type mapping​

Numeric type mapping​

Character type mapping​

Type mapping configuration properties​

SQL support​

SQL DELETE​

ALTER TABLE​

Performance​

Table statistics​

Pushdown​

Cost-based join pushdown​

Predicate pushdown support​

Bulk insert​

Data compression​