Arrow Flight Connector¶

This connector allows querying multiple data sources that are supported by an Arrow Flight server. Flight supports parallel transfers, allowing data to be streamed to or from a cluster of servers simultaneously. Official documentation for Arrow Flight can be found at Arrow Flight RPC.

Getting Started with presto-base-arrow-flight module: Essential Abstract Methods for Developers¶

To create a plugin extending the presto-base-arrow-flight module, you need to implement certain abstract methods that are specific to your use case. Below are the required classes and their purposes:

• BaseArrowFlightClientHandler.java This class contains the core functionality for the Arrow Flight module. A plugin extending base-arrow-module should extend this abstract class and implement the following methods.

  • getCallOptions This method should return an array of credential call options to authenticate to the Flight server.

  • getFlightDescriptorForSchema This method should return the flight descriptor to fetch Arrow Schema for the table.

  • listSchemaNames This method should return the list of schemas in the catalog.

  • listTables This method should return the list of tables in the catalog.

  • getFlightDescriptorForTableScan This method should return the flight descriptor for fetching data from the table.

• ArrowPlugin.java Register your connector name by extending the ArrowPlugin class.

• ArrowBlockBuilder.java (optional override to customize data types) This class builds Presto blocks from Arrow vectors. Extend this class if needed and override getPrestoTypeFromArrowField method, if any customizations are needed for the conversion of Arrow vector to Presto type. A binding for this class should be created in the Module for the plugin.

A reference implementation of the presto-base-arrow-flight module is provided in the test folder, containing a Flight server and a connector implementation. The testing Flight server in com.facebook.plugin.arrow.testingServer, starts a local server and initializes an H2 database to fetch data from. The server defines TestingArrowFlightRequest and TestingArrowFlightResponse used for commands in the Flight calls, and the TestingArrowProducer handles the calls including actions for listSchemaNames and listTables. The testing Flight connector in com.facebook.plugin.arrow.testingConnector, implements the above classes to connect with the testing Flight server to use as a data source for test queries.

Configuration¶

Create a catalog file in etc/catalog named, for example, arrowmariadb.properties, to mount the Flight connector as the arrowmariadb catalog. Create the file with the following contents, replacing the connection properties as appropriate for your setup:

connector.name=<connector_name>
arrow-flight.server=<server_endpoint>
arrow-flight.server.port=<server_port>

Add other properties that are required for your Flight server to connect.

Querying Arrow-Flight¶

The Flight connector provides schema for each supported database. Example for MariaDB is shown below. To see the available schemas, run SHOW SCHEMAS:

SHOW SCHEMAS FROM arrowmariadb;

To view the tables in the MariaDB database named user, run SHOW TABLES:

SHOW TABLES FROM arrowmariadb.user;

To see a list of the columns in the admin table in the user database, use either of the following commands:

DESCRIBE arrowmariadb.user.admin;
SHOW COLUMNS FROM arrowmariadb.user.admin;

Finally, you can access the admin table in the user database:

SELECT * FROM arrowmariadb.user.admin;

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

Flight Connector Limitations¶

• SELECT and DESCRIBE queries are supported. Implementing modules can add support for additional features.

• The Flight connector can query against only those datasources which are supported by the Flight server.

• The Flight server must be running for the Flight connector to work.