tAzureStorageInputTable Standard properties

Property Type

Select the way the connection details will be set.

• Built-In: The connection details will be set locally for this component. You need to specify the values for all related connection properties manually.

• Repository: The connection details stored centrally in Repository > Metadata will be reused by this component. You need to click the [...] button next to it and in the pop-up Repository Content dialog box, select the connection details to be reused, and all related connection properties will be automatically filled in.

This property is not available when other connection component is selected from the Connection Component drop-down list.

Select the component whose connection details will be used to set up the connection to Azure storage from the drop-down list.

Enter the name of the storage account you need to access. A storage account name can be found in the Storage accounts dashboard of the Microsoft Azure Storage system to be used. Ensure that the administrator of the system has granted you the appropriate access permissions to this storage account.

Authentication type

Set the authentication type for connecting to Microsoft Azure Blob storage. Two options are provided: Basic and Azure Active Directory.

• Basic: Select this option if you want to access Microsoft Azure Blob storage using your storage account access key or a shared access signature. See Configuring Azure Storage connection strings and Using shared access signatures (SAS) for related information.
• Azure Active Directory: Select this option to access Microsoft Azure Blob storage using your Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) credentials. See Authorize access to blobs and queues using Azure Active Directory for related information.

Account Key

Enter the key associated with the storage account you need to access. Two keys are available for each account and by default, either of them can be used for this access. Select the component whose connection details will be used to set up the connection to Azure storage from the drop-down list.

This option is available if you select Basic from the Authentication type drop-down list.

Protocol

Select the protocol for this connection to be created.

This option is available if you select Basic from the Authentication type drop-down list.

Use Azure Shared Access Signature

Select this check box to use a shared access signature (SAS) to access the storage resources without need for the account key. For more information, see Using Shared Access Signatures (SAS).

In the Azure Shared Access Signature field displayed, enter your account SAS URL between double quotation marks. You can get the SAS URL for each allowed service on Microsoft Azure portal after generating SAS. The SAS URL format is https://<$storagename>.<$service>.core.windows.net/<$sastoken>, where <$storagename> is the storage account name, <$service> is the allowed service name (blob, file, queue or table), and <$sastoken> is the SAS token value. For more information, see Constructing the Account SAS URI.

Note that the SAS has valid period, you can set the start time at which the SAS becomes valid and the expiry time after which the SAS is no longer valid when generating it, and you need to make sure your SAS is still valid when running your Job.

This option is available if you select Basic from the Authentication type drop-down list.

Tenant ID

Enter the ID of the Azure AD tenant. See Acquire a token from Azure AD for authorizing requests from a client application for related information.

This option is available if you select Azure Active Directory from the Authentication type drop-down list.

Client ID

Enter the client ID of your application. See Acquire a token from Azure AD for authorizing requests from a client application for related information.

This option is available if you select Azure Active Directory from the Authentication type drop-down list.

Client Secret

Enter the client secret of your application. See Acquire a token from Azure AD for authorizing requests from a client application for related information.

This option is available if you select Azure Active Directory from the Authentication type drop-down list.

Specify the name of the table from which the entities will be retrieved.

A schema is a row description. It defines the number of fields (columns) to be processed and passed on to the next component. When you create a Spark Job, avoid the reserved word line when naming the fields.

• Built-In: You create and store the schema locally for this component only.

• Repository: You have already created the schema and stored it in the Repository. You can reuse it in various projects and Job designs.

The schema of this component is predefined with the following columns that describe the three system properties of each entity:

• PartitionKey: the partition key for the partition that the entity belongs to.

• RowKey: the row key for the entity within the partition.

  PartitionKey and RowKey are string type values that uniquely identify every entity in a table, and the user must include them in every insert, update, and delete operation.

• Timestamp: the time that the entity was last modified. This DateTime value is maintained by the Azure server and it can not be modified by the user.

For more information about these system properties, see Understanding the Table Service Data Model.

Click Edit schema to make changes to the schema. If the current schema is of the Repository type, three options are available:

• View schema: choose this option to view the schema only.

• Change to built-in property: choose this option to change the schema to Built-in for local changes.

• Update repository connection: choose this option to change the schema stored in the repository and decide whether to propagate the changes to all the Jobs upon completion. If you just want to propagate the changes to the current Job, you can select No upon completion and choose this schema metadata again in the Repository Content window.

Select this check box and complete the Filter expressions table displayed to specify the conditions used to filter the entities to be retrieved by clicking the [+] button to add as many rows as needed, each row for a condition, and setting the value for the following parameters for each condition.

• Column: specify the name of the property on which you want to apply for the condition.
• Function: click the cell and select the comparison operator you want to use from the drop-down list.
• Value: specify the value used to compare the property to.
• Predicate: select the predicate used to combine the conditions.
• Field type: click the cell and select the type of the column from the drop-down list.

The generated filter expression will be displayed in the read-only Effective filter field.

For more information about the filter expressions, see Querying Tables and Entities.

Select the check box to stop the execution of the Job when an error occurs.

Complete this table to map the column name of the component schema with the property name of the Azure table entity if they are different.

• Schema column name: enter the column name of the component schema between double quotation marks.
• Entity property name: enter the property name of the Azure table entity between double quotation marks.

For example, if there are three schema columns CompanyID, EmployeeID, and EmployeeName that are used to feed the values for the PartitionKey, RowKey, and Name entity properties respectively, since the PartitionKey and RowKey columns have already been added to the schema automatically and you do not need to specify the mapping relationship for them, you only need to add one row and set the value of the Schema column name cell with "EmployeeName" and the value of the Entity property name cell with "Name" to specify the mapping relationship for the EmployeeName column when retrieving data from the Azure table.

Select this check box to gather the Job processing metadata at the Job level as well as at each component level.

The number of rows processed. This is an After variable and it returns an integer.

The error message generated by the component when an error occurs. This is an After variable and it returns a string.

Usage rule

This component is usually used as a start component of a Job or subJob and it always needs an output link.