Using Embrace, you can perform live queries on external databases.

If your company stores source data externally in data warehouses, you can use ThoughtSpot Embrace to directly query that data and use ThoughtSpot’s analysis and visualization features, without moving the data into ThoughtSpot.

Embrace supports the following external databases:

  • Snowflake
  • Amazon Redshift
  • Google BigQuery
  • Microsoft Azure Synapse
  • Teradata
  • SAP HANA
  • Oracle ADW

To enable Embrace, contact ThoughtSpot support.

How it works

You create a connection to the external database, choosing the columns from each table that you want to explore in your live query. Primary key and foreign key relationships are imported along with the primary and foreign key tables. If there are any joins in the tables of your connection, they are also imported. After your connection is complete, it becomes a linked data source in ThoughtSpot that allows you to query the external database directly. It’s easy to apply transformations and filter the data also.

Key benefits

  • Set up and deploy ThoughtSpot faster by connecting directly to the external database.
  • Eliminate the need to move data into ThoughtSpot for analysis.
  • Centralize data management and governance in the external database.
  • Save significant time and money by avoiding ETL pipelines.
  • Connect to multiple external databases.

The following sections contain the supported and recommended instance types for ThoughtSpot Embrace deployments in AWS, Azure, and GCP. When setting up your cluster, use the information here to select an instance type, configure the number of instances required for the storage you need, and add data volumes to your cluster.

AWS

VMs with EBS-only persistent storage

Per VM user data capacity Instance type CPU/RAM Recommended per-VM EBS volume Required boot volume capacity
Up to 1B rows r5.4xlarge, r4.4xlarge 16/122, 16/128 2X 400 GB 200 GB for each node
Up to 4B rows r5.8xlarge 32/244, 32/256 2X 400 GB 200 GB for each node
4B+ rows r5.16xlarge 64/488, 64/512 2x 1 TB 200 GB for each node

VMs with EBS and S3 persistent storage

Per VM user data capacity Instance type CPU/RAM Recommended per-VM EBS volume Required boot volume capacity
Up to 1B rows r5.4xlarge, r4.4xlarge 16/122, 16/128 1x 500 GB 200 GB for each node
Up to 4B rows r5.8xlarge 32/244, 32/256 1x 500 GB 200 GB for each node
4B+ rows r5.16xlarge 64/488, 64/512 1x 500 GB 200 GB for each node

Azure

Per VM user data capacity Instance type CPU/RAM Recommended per-VM
Premium SSD Managed Disk volume		 Required root volume capacity
Up to 1B rows E16s_v3 16/128 2X 400 GB 200 GB for each node
Up to 4B rows E32s_v3 32/256 2X 400 GB 200 GB for each node
4B+ rows E64s_v3 64/432 2x1 TB 200 GB for each node

GCP

VMs with Persistent Disk-only storage

Per VM user data capacity Instance type CPU/RAM Recommended per-VM
Zonal Persistent SSD Disk volume		 Required boot volume capacity
Up to 1B rows n1-highmem-16 16/122 2X 400 GB 200 GB for each node
Up to 4B rows n1-highmem-32 32/208 2X 400 GB 200 GB for each node
4B+ rows n1-highmem-64 64/416 2x 1 TB 200 GB for each node

VMs with Persistent Disk and Google Cloud storage

Per VM user data capacity Instance type CPU/RAM Recommended per-VM
Zonal Persistent SSD Disk volume		 Required boot volume capacity
Up to 1B rows n1-highmem-16 16/122 1X 500 GB 200 GB for each node
Up to 4B rows n1-highmem-32 32/208 1X 500 GB 200 GB for each node
4B+ rows n1-highmem-64 64/416 1X 500 GB 200 GB for each node

Limitations

Feature availability in Embrace

The following matrix compares the features that are available in our internal high-performance database, Falcon, and the ones available in Embrace:

Feature Name Falcon Embrace
Simple Search and Complex searches:
Versus, Inline Subquerying, Growth		 ✓ ✓
Search Suggestions for column names and values ✓ ✓
Headlines that summarize tables ✓ ✓
All chart types and configurations ✓ ✓
Spot IQ: Analyze ✓ ✓
Spot IQ: Instant insights, Did you know?,
Pinboard insights De-support 7.1		 ✓ ✗
Monitor ✓ ✗
Table and Column remapping through Scriptability ✗ ✓
Custom calendar ✓ ✗
Materialized view ✓ ✗
Location keywords ✓ ✗

Function availability in Embrace

The following matrix compares the specific function support across the different databases of Embrace. Functions not listed here have full support.

Function Snowflake Amazon
Redshift		 Google
BigQuery		 Azure
Synapse		 Teradata SAP
HANA
SOUNDS_LIKE ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
STRING_ MATCH_SCORE ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
EDIT_DISTANCE_WITH_CAP ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
APPROX_SET_CARDINALITY ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
COUNT_NOT_NULL ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✗
SPELLS_LIKE ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✓ ✗
EDIT_DISTANCE ✓ ✗ ✗ ✗ ✓ ✗
MEDIAN ✓ ✓ ✗ ✓ ✓ ✓
PERCENTILE ✓ ✓ ✗ ✓ ✓ ✗

Data type availability in Embrace

The following matrix captures the specific data type support limitations across the different databases of Embrace. Data types not listed here have full support.

Data Type
 Snowflake
 Amazon
Redshift		 Google
BigQuery		 Azure
Synapse		 Teradata SAP
HANA
BINARY ✗ ✓ ✓ ✗ ✓ ✓
VARBINARY ✗ ✓ ✓ ✗ ✓ ✗
GEOMETRY ✓ ✗ ✓ ✓ ✓ ✗
BYTES ✓ ✓ ✗ ✓ ✗ ✓
DATETIMEOFFSET ✓ ✓ ✓ ✗ ✓ ✓

Additional specific exceptions

The following list captures the specific limitations across the different databases of Embrace. Databases not listed here have full support.

General: all databases
Sample values
Embrace does not internationalize sample values in tables.
Google BigQuery
Join support
Google BigQuery does not support PK-FK joins. Therefore, when using Embrace, you must create joins explicitly in ThoughtSpot.
Partitioned tables
When running a query on a partitioned table with the Require partition filter option enabled, you must specify the WHERE clause. Without a WHERE clause specified, queries generate an error.
To ensure that the query on such tables honors the partition condition, you must create a worksheet filter in ThoughtSpot.
Azure Synapse
Azure Synapse supports up to 10 IF THEN ELSE statements in a single query.
Azure Synapse does not support foreign keys, so no PK-FK joins can be defined in Synapse.
Teradata
Teradata does not support the function: AGGREGATE_DISTINCT.
Teradata does not support the following data types: JSON, INTERVAL, VARBYTE, BLOB, CLOB, PERIOD, XML, GEOSPATIAL.
SAP HANA
SAP HANA does not support the following functions: PERCENTILE, AGGREGATE_DISTINCT, SPELLS_LIKE, EDIT_DISTANCE.
SAP HANA does not support the following data types: BLOB, CLOB, NCLOB, TEXT, POINT.
SAP HANA does not support calculation views with mandatory input parameters. If you need to use calculation views in ThoughtSpot, you must remove the mandatory parameter requirement.

Next steps