Firebolt

Encrypting network traffic

It is a best practice to encrypt network traffic between the Looker application and your database. Consider one of the options described on the Enabling secure database access documentation page.

Create a Looker user

In Firebolt, create a user email and password for Looker to use to connect to your Firebolt instance.

Creating the Looker connection to your database

Follow these steps to create the connection from Looker to your database:

  1. In the Admin section of Looker, select Connections, and then click Add Connection.

  2. Fill out the connection details. The majority of the settings are common to most database dialects. See the Connecting Looker to your database documentation page for information. Some of the settings are described next:

    • Name: Specify the name of the connection. This is how you will refer to the connection in LookML projects.
    • Dialect: Specify the dialect Firebolt.
    • Host: Specify the endpoint: api.app.firebolt.io
    • Port: Specify the database port. The default is 443.
    • Database: Specify the database name.
    • Username: Enter the database user email.
    • Password: Enter the database user password.
    • Additional JDBC parameters: Add any additional Firebolt JDBC parameters
    • SSL: Check to use SSL connections.
    • Verify SSL: Check to enforce strict SSL certificate verification.
    • Max connections per node: This setting can be left at the default value initially. See the Connecting Looker to your database documentation page for more information.
    • Connection Pool Timeout: Can be left at the default value initially. Read more about this setting on the Connecting Looker to your database documentation page.
    • SQL Runner Precache: To cause SQL Runner not to preload table information and to load table information only when a table is selected, clear this option. Read more about this setting on the Connecting Looker to your database documentation page.
    • Database Time Zone: Specify the time zone used in the database. Leave this field blank if you do not want time zone conversion. See the Using time zone settings documentation page for more information.

  3. To verify that the connection is successful, click Test. See the Testing database connectivity documentation page for troubleshooting information.

  4. To save these settings, click Connect.

Feature support

For Looker to support some features, your database dialect must also support them.

Firebolt supports the following features as of Looker 24.16:

Feature Supported?
Support Level
Supported
Looker (Google Cloud core)
No
Symmetric Aggregates
Yes
Derived Tables
Yes
Persistent SQL Derived Tables
No
Persistent Native Derived Tables
No
Stable Views
No
Query Killing
Yes
SQL-based Pivots
Yes
Timezones
No
SSL
Yes
Subtotals
No
JDBC Additional Params
Yes
Case Sensitive
Yes
Location Type
Yes
List Type
Yes
Percentile
No
Distinct Percentile
No
SQL Runner Show Processes
Yes
SQL Runner Describe Table
Yes
SQL Runner Show Indexes
Yes
SQL Runner Select 10
Yes
SQL Runner Count
Yes
SQL Explain
Yes
Oauth Credentials
No
Context Comments
Yes
Connection Pooling
No
HLL Sketches
No
Aggregate Awareness
No
Incremental PDTs
No
Milliseconds
No
Microseconds
No
Materialized Views
No
Approximate Count Distinct
No