Getting Started with Exasol SaaS

Exasol SaaS is a cloud-based database application. Built on top of the existing Exasol in-memory, columnar storage, MPP architecture technology, it is easy to deploy and get started quickly. With Amazon S3 as a storage back-end, a database can support multiple compute clusters that all access the same data.

Exasol SaaS includes a new compute-storage separation which allows you to scale the compute and storage separately. In addition, this also allows you to easily scale up or scale down (changing instance types for more powerful computing power) or scale in and out (adding additional compute clusters for added concurrency and workloads).

Benefits of using Exasol SaaS include: 

• Ease of access: You can easily and quickly get started with Exasol SaaS within minutes without needing to go through a cloud marketplace.

• No installation and maintenance: Since it is a software-as-a-service, you no longer need to worry about installing and configuring the hardware or software - all of this is managed for you by Exasol.

• Ease of administration: With the interactive web interface, you can easily administer your databases, scale databases and clusters, and execute SQL workloads.

You can subscribe to either of the following Exasol SaaS editions:

• Standard edition: The ideal choice to improve the performance of current data business intelligence (BI) stacks and give their reporting speeds a boost to enable real-time, self-service business intelligence.

• Enterprise edition: The ideal choice for a scalable platform that needs advanced analytics and data integration. Data that requires multi-departmental analytics environments, needs to perform machine learning or artificial intelligence in the database, or has complex requirements in terms of data integration and data vitalization will be greatly enhanced with Enterprise edition.

The Exasol SaaS Free Trial provides all the functionality of the Enterprise edition. You can use the free trial for 30 days or $500 credits worth of use, whichever is depleted first. You do not need to provide payment information during the trial period. After the trial, you will be charged monthly for the subscription of your choice. For more information, see Invoicing.

For more information about the functionality differences between the two editions, see Editions Overview.

For a quick overview about how to get started with SaaS, watch the following video. The rest of this topic provides detailed step by step information.

Register for Exasol SaaS

To get started with Exasol SaaS, you first need to register for an account and set up a subscription to the Enterprise edition trial.

1. Visit https://cloud.exasol.com/signup, enter your email address, and click Sign up.
2. You will next receive an email to verify your email address and finish setting up your account, including creating a password.
3. After setting up your account, you will receive an email with your account details and can sign in.

You now have an account for a trial subscription of the Enterprise edition.

When you log in to your Exasol SaaS environment, your user account is assigned the Owner role and can perform all actions. To know more about user accounts and access management, see Access Management.

Add a Database

When you sign in to the Exasol SaaS web console for the first time, you will see the Databases page with the option to add a new database. Users you invite will also be able to view the databases they have access to on this page. Users with the Owner role can add new databases.

For detailed steps on how to add a database, see Add Database.

After creating a database, you will be redirected back to the Databases page where you can view the database you created. The database status is Creating until it is ready for use. Depending on the cluster size, this process can take several minutes. Once the database is ready for use, the status will change to Running.

To learn more about databases and clusters in Exasol SaaS, see Manage Databases and Clusters.

Run your first Query

You can run your SQL queries directly in the browser using Worksheets, a web-based SQL client. You can also create and save worksheets and access them later. To create your worksheet and run a query, do the following:

1. In the web console, click Worksheets, and then click or Add worksheet.
2. In the Create worksheet dialog box:
   • Select the database you want to query.
   • Select the cluster to which you want to connect.
   • Enter a name for the worksheet.

   

3. Click Create. The worksheet page opens with the status Connected. If the status does not show as Connected, check if the database or cluster is running, and try again.
4. Enter an SQL query and click the Run button. You can also use the keyboard shortcut CTRL+Enter or CMD + Enter to execute the query.

To learn more about worksheets, see Worksheets.

Next Steps

Invite more Users

You can invite users within your organization to access your Exasol SaaS environment directly in the web console. When you invite users, they will receive an email with the link to accept the invitation and complete their profile. If the users already have an Exasol user account, they will receive an email with the link to accept the invitation and log in with their existing account.

To learn more about managing users and inviting users, see Manage Users.

Connect with Other Tools

You can easily connect Exasol SaaS to various SQL clients, BI tools, and more using the Exasol JDBC or ODBC drivers. By using the Connect via Tools option available for each cluster in a database, you can download the required Exasol driver for your tool and get the connection details. You must add your IP address to the allowed IP address list to access your cluster from a tool.

To learn more about the tools you can connect and for detailed instructions, see Connect via Tools.

Load Data

You can load data into Exasol from a CSV file or from other data sources using native Exasol SQL or using Keboola. Keboola is a cloud-based data operations platform that allows you to quickly build ETL/ELT pipelines using a graphical user interface. For more information, see Loading Data and Loading Data using Keboola.

Manage your Databases and Clusters

You can manage your databases and clusters directly in the Web Console. For scalability, you can easily scale up or down your cluster using the Resize button. Adding additional clusters to your database can be done in just a few clicks as well.

To learn more about databases and clusters in Exasol SaaS, see Manage Databases and Clusters.