Alation Tags Integration

The Alation Tags Integration is a tool to pass tags on columns in Alation to Snowflake and ALTR.

The tool grabs tags from Alation that have been applied to columns, adds/applies those tag values to the corresponding column in Snowflake, imports Snowflake Object Tags into ALTR and adds those columns to ALTR to be governed.

This tool is plumbing between to available API's..

• ALTR Management API

• Alation API

and Snowflake.

How it works

The tool:

1. gets tag data from alation
2. gets column data for said tags
3. applies tag values to corresponding Snowflake columns
4. gets databases in ALTR
5. checks for corresponding Alation databases
6. if there is a database in Alation (that has tagged columns) and not in ALTR it adds said database to ALTR
7. adds tagged columns to ALTR to be governed
8. updates existing databases in ALTR to import Snowflake Object Tags

Why use it

ALTR partnered with Alation to fill a gap between data cataloging and data governance.

With this powerful tool you can apply tags to a column in Alation and automatically have that tag applied to the corresponding Snowflake column. If policy on that tag exists in ALTR it will automatically be applied. If not, you can easily create a tag based policy in ALTR on that new tag.

Visuals

Integration Flowchart:

Installation

Install From Source

$ git clone https://github.com/altrsoftware/altr-alation-tag-policy.git

$ cd altr-alation-tag-policy

Before using the tool

1. Fill out the .env file environment variables

// ALATION
ALATION_API_ACCESS_TOKEN = "Your Alation API Access Token"
ALATION_DOMAIN = "Your Alation domain (example-prod.alationcatalog.com)"
ALATION_EMAIL = "The email used to sign in and create the Access Token"

// SNOWFLAKE
SF_ACCOUNT = "Snowflake account identifier (exampleorg.us-east-1)"
SF_DB_USERNAME = "The login name for your Snowflake user"
SF_DB_PASSWORD = "The password for your Snowflake user"
SF_HOSTNAME = "The hostname of your Snowflake instance (example.us-west-3.snowflakecomputing.com)"
SF_WAREHOUSE = ""
SF_ROLE = "The Snowflake role (make sure this role has access to the Snowflake database(s) you are creating tags in. Make sure your user has access to this role.)"

//ALTR CALL SPECIFICS
ALTR_DOMAIN = "Your ALTR domain (altrnet.live.altr.com)"
ALTR_KEY_NAME = "Your ALTR Managment API key name"
ALTR_KEY_PASSWORD = "The password to your key"

How To Use

Warning You must complete the Before using the tool section; otherwise, the integration will not work correctly.

Method 1: Docker

This method will install the necessary packages needed to run the application for you.

$ docker build -t altr/alation-classification-integration .

$ docker run -d altr/alation-classification-integration

Method 2: Manually

$ npm install

$ node index.js

Dependencies

This application was built using the following node packages and their respected version:

• node : 0.27.2

• dotenv : 16.0.3

• axios : 0.27.2

• snowflake-sdk : 1.6.14

• axios-mock-adapter : 1.21.2

• jest : 29.2.2

Support

Need support to get this application running? Have questions, concerns or comments?

Email application-engineers@altr.com with a subject line of "ALTR + Alation Tags Policy Integration".

License

GNU General Public License