Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics

Encrypting network traffic

It is a best practice to encrypt network traffic between the Looker application and your database. Consider one of the options described on the Enabling secure database access documentation page.

To learn more about using SSL encryption, see the Microsoft documentation .

Users and security

First, connect to the master database on your server with your server admin login:

  CREATE 
  
 LOGIN 
  
 looker 
 WITH 
  
 PASSWORD 
  
 = 
  
 '<strong_password>' 
 ; 
 

Connect to your Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics database and create a database user:

  CREATE 
  
 USER 
  
 looker 
  
 FOR 
  
 LOGIN 
  
 looker 
 ; 
 

Looker must be authorized to detect and stop currently running queries, which requires the following permissions:

  ALTER 
  
 ANY 
  
 CONNECTION 
 VIEW 
  
 SERVER 
  
 STATE 
 

To grant these permissions, run the following:

  GRANT 
  
 CONTROL 
  
 ON 
  
 DATABASE 
 :: 
 userDatabase 
  
 TO 
  
 looker 
 ; 
 

Depending on the Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics tier being used, you may also need to explicitly grant the VIEW DATABASE STATE permission.

To grant VIEW DATABASE STATE permission, run the following:

  GRANT 
  
 VIEW 
  
 DATABASE 
  
 STATE 
  
 TO 
  
 looker 
 ; 
 

Temp schema setup

Create a schema owned by the Looker user:

  CREATE 
  
 SCHEMA 
  
 looker_scratch 
  
 AUTHORIZATION 
  
 looker 
 ; 
 

Creating the Looker connection to your database

In the Adminsection of Looker, select Connections, and then click Add Connection.

Fill out the connection details. The majority of the settings are common to most database dialects. See the Connecting Looker to your database documentation page for information. The following fields have additional information that applies to Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics:

• Dialect: Select Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics.

• Remote Hostand Port: Enter the hostname and port (the default port is 1433).

  If you need to specify a non-default port other than 1433 and your database requires the use of a comma instead of a colon, you can add useCommaHostPortSeparator=true in the Additional JDBC parametersfield further down in the connection settings, which will allow you to use a comma in the Remote Host:Portfield. For example:

  jdbc:sqlserver://hostname,1434

To verify that the connection is successful, click Test. See the Testing database connectivity documentation page for troubleshooting information.

To save these settings, click Connect.

Feature support

For Looker to support some features, your database dialect must also support them.

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics supports the following features as of Looker 25.14: