Cloud Spanner

The Cloud Spanner connector lets you perform insert, delete, update, and read operations on Google Cloud Spanner database.

Before you begin

Before using the Cloud Spanner 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/spanner.databaseUser

      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:

  1. 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

  2. Click + CREATE NEW to open the Create Connection page.
  3. 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.
  4. In the Connection Details section, complete the following:
    1. Connector: Select Cloud Spanner 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. Project ID: The ID of the Google Cloud project where the Spanner instance resides.
    9. Database Region: The name of the region where the Spanner instance resides.
    10. Instance ID: The ID of the Spanner instance to connect to.
    11. Database Name: The name of the Spanner database to connect to.
    12. Optionally, click + ADD LABEL to add a label to the Connection in the form of a key/value pair.
    13. Click NEXT.
  5. In the Authentication section, enter the authentication details.
    1. The Cloud Spanner connection doesn't require any authentication.
    2. Click NEXT.
  6. Review: Review your connection and authentication details.
  7. Click Create.

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:

    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.

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.

      image showing execute-custom-query-action image showing execute-custom-query-action

    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.

        image showing custom-sql-query image showing custom-sql-query

      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=?

      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.

        image showing add-query-param image showing add-query-param

        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.

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

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
project_id STRING True The ID of the Google Cloud project where the Spanner instance resides.
database_region STRING True The name of the region where the Spanner instance resides.
instance_id STRING True The ID of the Spanner instance to connect to.
database_name STRING True The name of the Spanner database to connect to.
database_dialect ENUM True Specify the type of database dialect for your spanner database. Supported values are: GoogleStandardSQL, PostgreSQL

Use the Cloud Spanner 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.

Get help from the Google Cloud community

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

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