Overview

Cube.js is an open-source analytical API platform that empowers developers to build custom and scalable analytics solutions. By acting as an intermediary between your data sources and front-end applications, Cube.js simplifies the process of querying large datasets and ensures efficient data management and visualization.

Integrating Cube.js with Firebolt significantly enhances the data processing capabilities of your analytics stack. Firebolt’s ability to execute complex queries with minimal latency aligns perfectly with Cube.js’s goal of delivering fast and responsive analytics. As a result, users benefit from a seamless and highly performant analytics experience, making it an ideal solution for businesses looking to scale their data operations without compromising on speed or efficiency.

Quickstart: Connecting Cube.js to Firebolt

Follow these steps to quickly connect Cube.js to Firebolt and start building powerful analytics solutions using Docker. For this demo we’ll be using Cube Core. For other deployment options follow the Cube documentation.

Prerequisites

Docker: Ensure you have Docker installed. You can download it from here.
Firebolt Account: You need an active Firebolt account. Sign up here if you don’t have one.
Firebolt Database and Table: Make sure you have a Firebolt database and table with data ready for querying. Follow our Getting started tutorial to set up some sample data.
Firebolt Service Account: Create a service account in Firebolt and note its id and secret.

Step 1: Create a Cube.js Project with Docker

Create a new directory for your Cube.js project:

mkdir cubejs-firebolt
cd cubejs-firebolt
touch docker-compose.yml

Create a docker-compose.yml file with the following content:

version: "2.2"

services:
  cube:
    image: cubejs/cube:latest
    ports:
     - 4000:4000
     - 15432:15432
    environment:
      CUBEJS_DEV_MODE: "true"
    volumes:
      - .:/cube/conf

Step 2: Start Cube.js

Run the Cube.js development server using Docker Compose:
```
docker compose up -d
```
Open your browser and navigate to http://localhost:4000. You should see the Cube.js playground.

Step 3: Configure Firebolt Connection via UI

The Playground has a database connection wizard that loads when Cube is first started up and no .env file is found. After database credentials have been set up, an .env file will automatically be created and populated with credentials.

Select Firebolt as the database type.
Enter your Firebolt credentials:
- Client ID: Your service account ID
- Client Secret: Your service account secret
- Database: Your Firebolt database name
- Account: Your account name
- Engine Name: Your Firebolt engine name
Click “Apply” to set up the connection

Step 4: Generate Schema Using UI

You should see tables available to you from the configured database

Select the levels table.
After selecting the table, click Generate Data Model and pick either YAML (recommended) or JavaScript format.
Click build.

You can start exploring your data!

Step 5: Query data in Playground

Select measures, dimensions and filters to explore your data!

Playground

Congratulations! You have successfully connected Cube.js to Firebolt and can now start building high-performance analytics solutions. For more detailed configuration and advanced features, refer to the Cube.js documentation and Firebolt documentation.