SQL Server

The SQL Server connector lets you perform insert, delete, update, and read operations on a SQL Server database.

Supported versions

SQL Server versions: 2008, 2012, 2014, 2016, 2017, 2019, and 2022

Before you begin

Before using the SQL Server connector, do the following tasks:

In your Google Cloud project:
- Ensure that network connectivity is set up. For information about network patterns, see Network connectivity.
- Grant the roles/connectors.admin IAM role to the user configuring the connector.
- Grant the following IAM roles to the service account that you want to use for the connector:
  - roles/secretmanager.viewer
  - roles/secretmanager.secretAccessor
  A service account is a special type of Google account intended to represent a non-human user that needs to authenticate and be authorized to access data in Google APIs. If you don't have a service account, you must create a service account. For more information, see Creating a service account.
- Enable the following services:
  - secretmanager.googleapis.com (Secret Manager API)
  - connectors.googleapis.com (Connectors API)
  To understand how to enable services, see Enabling services.
If these services or permissions have not been enabled for your project previously, you are prompted to enable them when configuring the connector.

Configure the connector

Configuring the connector requires you to create a connection to your data source (backend system). A connection is specific to a data source. It means that if you have many data sources, you must create a separate connection for each data source. To create a connection, do the following steps:

In the Cloud console, go to the Integration Connectors > Connections page and then select or create a Google Cloud project.
Go to the Connections page
Click + Create new to open the Create Connection page.
In the Location section, choose the location for the connection.
1. Region: Select a location from the drop-down list.
  For the list of all the supported regions, see Locations.
2. Click Next.
In the Connection Details section, complete the following:
1. Connector: Select SQL Server from the drop down list of available Connectors.
2. Connector version: Select the Connector version from the drop down list of available versions.
3. In the Connection Name field, enter a name for the Connection instance.
  Connection names must meet the following criteria:
  - Connection names can use letters, numbers, or hyphens.
  - Letters must be lower-case.
  - Connection names must begin with a letter and end with a letter or number.
  - Connection names cannot exceed 49 characters.
4. Optionally, enter a Description for the connection instance.
5. Optionally, enable Cloud logging, and then select a log level. By default, the log level is set to Error.
6. Service Account: Select a service account that has the required roles.
7. Optionally, configure the Connection node settings:
  - Minimum number of nodes: Enter the minimum number of connection nodes.
  - Maximum number of nodes: Enter the maximum number of connection nodes.
  A node is a unit (or replica) of a connection that processes transactions. More nodes are required to process more transactions for a connection and conversely, fewer nodes are required to process fewer transactions. To understand how the nodes affect your connector pricing, see Pricing for connection nodes. If you don't enter any values, by default the minimum nodes are set to 2 (for better availability) and the maximum nodes are set to 50.
8. Use proxy: Select this checkbox to configure a proxy server for the connection and configure the following values:
- Proxy Auth Scheme: Select the authentication type to authenticate with the proxy server. The following authentication types are supported:
  - Basic: Basic HTTP authentication.
  - Digest: Digest HTTP authentication.
- Proxy User: A user name to be used to authenticate with the proxy server.
- Proxy Password: The Secret manager secret of the user's password.
- Proxy SSL Type: The SSL type to use when connecting to the proxy server. The following authentication types are supported:
  - Auto: Default setting. If the URL is an HTTPS URL, then the Tunnel option is used. If the URL is an HTTP URL, then the NEVER option is used.
  - Always: The connection is always SSL enabled.
  - Never: The connection is not SSL enabled.
  - Tunnel: The connection is through a tunneling proxy. The proxy server opens a connection to the remote host and traffic flows back and forth through the proxy.
- In the Proxy Server section, enter details of the proxy server.
  1. Click + Add destination.
  2. Select a Destination Type.
    - Host address: Specify the hostname or IP address of the destination.
      If you want to establish a private connection to your backend system, do the following:
      - Create a PSC service attachment.
      - Create an endpoint attachment and then enter the details of the endpoint attachment in the Host address field.
ApplicationIntent: The application intent connection string property expresses the client application's request to be directed either to a read-write or read-only version of an availability group database. To use read-only routing, a client must use an application intent of read-only in the connection string when connecting to the availability group listener. Without the read-only application intent, connections to the availability group listener are directed to the database on the primary replica.
ApplicationName: The application name connection string property expresses the client application's name.
Database: The name of the SQL Server database.
Encrypt: This field sets whether SSL is enabled.
Optionally, click + Add label to add a label to the Connection in the form of a key/value pair.
Optionally, if you want to use SSL, select Enable SSL. This displays the SSL configuration details.
1. Select a trust store type. It can be either Public, Private, or Insecure Connection.
2. Select the certificates as displayed based on your trust store selection.
3. If you are using mTLS, select the key store certificates in the Key Store section.
Note:
- All your certificates must be X.509 certificates and must be in PEM (Privacy Enhanced Mail) format.
- You can't directly select a certificate when configuring SSL. You must store all your certificates and private keys as a Secret Manager Secret, and then select the required secret during SSL configuration.
Click Next.

In the Destinations section, enter details of the remote host (backend system) you want to connect to.

Destination Type: Select a Destination Type.
- Select Host address from the list to specify the hostname or IP address of the destination.
- If you want to establish a private connection to your backend systems, select Endpoint attachment from the list, and then select the required endpoint attachment from the Endpoint Attachment list.
  Note: To understand how to create an endpoint attachment, see PSC service attachment and endpoint attachment. After you have created the endpoint attachment, it will be visible in the Endpoint Attachment list.
If you want to establish a public connection to your backend systems with additional security, you can consider configuring static outbound IP addresses for your connections, and then configure your firewall rules to allowlist only the specific static IP addresses.

To enter additional destinations, click +Add destination.
Click Next.

In the Authentication section, enter the authentication details.

Select an Authentication type and enter the relevant details.
The following authentication types are supported by the SQL Server connection:
- Username and password

To understand how to configure these authentication types, see Configure authentication.

Click Next.

Review: Review your connection and authentication details.

Click Create.

Configure authentication

Enter the details based on the authentication you want to use.

Username and password
- Username: Username for connector
- Password: Secret Manager Secret containing the password associated with the connector.
- Auth Scheme: The scheme used for authentication

Entities, operations, and actions

All the Integration Connectors provide a layer of abstraction for the objects of the connected application. You can access an application's objects only through this abstraction. The abstraction is exposed to you as entities, operations, and actions.

Entity: An entity can be thought of as an object, or a collection of properties, in the connected application or service. The definition of an entity differs from a connector to a connector. For example, in a database connector, tables are the entities, in a file server connector, folders are the entities, and in a messaging system connector, queues are the entities.
However, it is possible that a connector doesn't support or have any entities, in which case the Entities list will be empty.
Operation: An operation is the activity that you can perform on an entity. You can perform any of the following operations on an entity:
- List
- Get
- Create
- Update
- Delete
Selecting an entity from the available list, generates a list of operations available for the entity. For a detailed description of the operations, see the Connectors task's entity operations. However, if a connector doesn't support any of the entity operations, such unsupported operations aren't listed in the Operations list.
Action: An action is a first class function that is made available to the integration through the connector interface. An action lets you make changes to an entity or entities, and vary from connector to connector. Normally, an action will have some input parameters, and an output parameter. However, it is possible that a connector doesn't support any action, in which case the Actions list will be empty.

System limitations

The SQL Server connector can process a maximum of 90 transactions per second, per node, and throttles any transactions beyond this limit. By default, Integration Connectors allocates 2 nodes (for better availability) for a connection.

For information on the limits applicable to Integration Connectors, see Limits.

Note: The number of Integration Connectors nodes will autoscale dynamically based on your usage. However, if you want to reserve capacity for large volumes without waiting for autoscaling, you can adjust the minimum node value for a connection. More nodes are required to process more transactions for a connection. Conversely, fewer nodes are required if a connection processes fewer transactions. To configure the node values, do the following:

If you are a pay-as-you-go customer, configure the minimum and maximum node value in the edit connection page.
If you are a subscription based customer, contact support.

The maximum transactions that a node can handle depends on various factors. So, before adjusting the minimum nodes for better throughput, it is recommended you check if your backend systems are set up optimally to handle the required traffic.

Supported data types

The following are the supported data types for this connector:

BIGINT
BINARY
BIT
BOOLEAN
CHAR
DATE
DECIMAL
DOUBLE
FLOAT
INTEGER
LONGN VARCHAR
LONG VARCHAR
NCHAR
NUMERIC
NVARCHAR
REAL
SMALL INT
TIME
TIMESTAMP
TINY INT
VARBINARY
VARCHAR

Actions

This connector supports execution of the following actions:

User-defined stored procedures and functions. If you have any stored procedures and functions in your backend, those are listed in the Actions column of the Configure connector task dialog.
Custom SQL queries. To execute custom SQL queries, the connector provides the Execute custom query action.
To create a custom query, follow these steps:
1. Follow the detailed instructions to add a connectors task.
2. When you configure the connector task, in the type of action you want to perform, select Actions.
3. In the Action list, select Execute custom query, and then click Done.
4. Expand the Task input section, and then do the following:
  1. In the Timeout after field, enter the number of seconds to wait till the query executes.
    Default value: 180 seconds.
  2. In the Maximum number of rows field, enter the maximum number of rows to be returned from the database.
    Default value: 25.
  3. To update the custom query, click Edit Custom Script. The Script editor dialog opens.
  4. In the Script editor dialog, enter the SQL query and click Save.
    You can use a question mark (?) in a SQL statement to represent a single parameter that must be specified in the query parameters list. For example, the following SQL query selects all rows from the Employees table that matches the values specified for the LastName column:
```
SELECT * FROM Employees where LastName=?
```
    Note: Data manipulation language (DML) and data definition language (DDL) statements are supported.
  5. If you've used question marks in your SQL query, you must add the parameter by clicking + Add Parameter Name for each question mark. While executing the integration, these parameters replace the question marks (?) in the SQL query sequentially. For example, if you have added three question marks (?), then you must add three parameters in order of sequence.
    
    To add query parameters, do the following:
    1. From the Type list, select the data type of the parameter.
    2. In the Value field, enter the value of the parameter.
    3. To add multiple parameters, click + Add Query Parameter.

Use terraform to create connections

You can use the Terraform resource to create a new connection.

To learn how to apply or remove a Terraform configuration, see Basic Terraform commands.

To view a sample terraform template for connection creation, see sample template.

When creating this connection by using Terraform, you must set the following variables in your Terraform configuration file:

Parameter name	Data type	Required	Description
application_intent	STRING	False	The application intent connection string property expresses the client application's request to be directed either to a read-write or read-only version of an availability group database. To use read-only routing, a client must use an application intent of read-only in the connection string when connecting to the availability group listener. Without the read-only application intent, connections to the availability group listener are directed to the database on the primary replica.
application_name	STRING	False	The application name connection string property expresses the client application's name.
database	STRING	False	The name of the SQL Server database.
encrypt	BOOLEAN	False	This field sets whether SSL is enabled.
enable_logging	ENUM	False	Enables verbosity for logging during a connection by selecting a level between 1 (least verbose) and 5 (most verbose). This feature can aid in troubleshooting error messages or other unexpected behavior. However, please be aware that this option will log all communication details, including requests, responses, and SSL certificates, between the connector and backend. Therefore, it is not advisable to utilize this function in a live production environment. Supported values are: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5
proxy_enabled	BOOLEAN	False	Select this checkbox to configure a proxy server for the connection.
proxy_auth_scheme	ENUM	False	The authentication type to use to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy. Supported values are: BASIC, DIGEST, NONE
proxy_user	STRING	False	A user name to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy.
proxy_password	SECRET	False	A password to be used to authenticate to the ProxyServer proxy.
proxy_ssltype	ENUM	False	The SSL type to use when connecting to the ProxyServer proxy. Supported values are: AUTO, ALWAYS, NEVER, TUNNEL

Use the SQL Server connection in an integration

After you create the connection, it becomes available in both Apigee Integration and Application Integration. You can use the connection in an integration through the Connectors task.

To understand how to create and use the Connectors task in Apigee Integration, see Connectors task.
To understand how to create and use the Connectors task in Application Integration, see Connectors task.

Also, see the Perform CRUD operations on a MySQL database tutorial that shows how to create a MySQL connection, and use the connection in an integration to perform read and write operations.

Get help from the Google Cloud community

You can post your questions and discuss this connector in the Google Cloud community at Cloud Forums.

What's next

Understand how to suspend and resume a connection.
Understand how to monitor connector usage.
Understand how to view connector logs.