Adding connections to projects

You need to create a connection asset for a data source before you can load data to or from it. A connection asset contains the information necessary to create a connection to a data source.

You create connections to these types of data sources:

• IBM Cloud services
• Other cloud services
• On-premises databases

See Connection types for a full list of data sources.

To create a new connection in a project:

1. Click Add to project > Connection.
2. Choose a data source.
3. Enter the connection information required for your data source. Typically, you need to provide information like the host, port number, user name, and password.

4. Enter your credentials. If your data source does supports personal credentials, select Shared to enter credentials to make the data source and its credentials accessible to all collaborators in the project or select Personal, if you want each collaborator to provide their own credentials to use the data source. Not all connections support personal credentials.

   Note: Personal credentials are not supported in Data Refinery. See Known issues.

5. Click Create. The connection appears on the Assets page. You can edit the connection by clicking the connection name on the Assets page.

Connections with personal credentials are marked with a key icon () on the Assets page and are locked. If you are authorized to access the connection, you can unlock it by entering your credentials the first time you select it. This is a one-time step that permanently unlocks the connection for you. After you have unlocked the connection, the key icon is no longer displayed. Connections with personal credentials are already unlocked if you created the connections yourself.

Next steps

Add data from this connection:

• Create a connected data asset
• Navigate to Data Refinery, and select the connection. Drill down to a schema, and table or view.