Introduction
In a new and exciting development, users of IBM watsonx.data can now manage their DataStax Astra DB instances from within the watsonx.data dashboard! Here, we will take a look at this new functionality and demonstrate how to perform a few simple management tasks with Astra DB from watsonx.data.
Create a new Astra DB instance
Let’s start by creating a new Astra DB instance. First, open the Infrastructure Manager and click on the “Add component” button. Look for “Astra DB” under the “Services” category, as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1 – Locating the Astra DB service on the “Add component” window.
Note: We can also use the “Find component” search bar to locate the Astra DB service.
Select the Astra DB service and click “Next.”
The next page (shown in Figure 2) is where we can define our Astra DB instance. The “Display service name” should be pre-filled, but we can change it here. Go ahead and give the database instance a name, too.
Figure 2 – Defining the configuration for the new Astra DB database
Select the type of database needed. If the application currently or will (at some point) require vector search, select the option for a “Serverless (vector)” database. Otherwise, the “Serverless (tables)” option should work just fine.
Next, pick a cloud provider and data center region. We can select from Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, or Microsoft Azure. The available regions will change depending on the cloud provider selected.
Finally, click on the “Create” button.
From there, we will be taken back to the infrastructure manager page. We can click on our Astra DB service to see its progress, as shown in Figure 3. The new Astra DB instance should be available in a few minutes.
Note: We should receive an email once the Astra DB instance is active.
Figure 3 – The Astra DB service details page, showing that the new database “aaronsdb” is currently initializing.
With our new Astra database created, we can move on to the additional tasks of obtaining the DB API endpoint and generating a token.
Copy the new DB API endpoint
To connect our application to the new Astra DB instance, we will need to click on the Astra DB service from the Infrastructure Manager to view the Astra DB service. Locate the database, click on the three-dots menu, and select “View details” as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4 – Locating the “View details” option from the three-dots menu.
In the detail window (Figure 5) Look for the “API endpoint” label and notice the endpoint underneath it. Click on the copy button to copy and save it for later use.
Figure 5 – The Database details window, which shows additional details and links for our Astra database.
Note: The Database details window also includes links to the original Astra dashboard as well as a CQL shell session for your database.
From the Astra DB service view, click on the “Tokens” tab. Click on the “Create token” button. Provide a description for the token, select a role (from the dropdown), and select an expiration time.
Note: We also have the ability to create custom roles and access controls for our Astra DB instance from within the watsonx.data UI.
Click the “Create token” button.
The token details window will appear (Figure 6), confirming its creation. From here, we can see the token metadata, including the token itself. We can use the copy button to copy this information to our clipboard, or we can select and copy the text of the token itself. Save this information somewhere safe.
Figure 6 – The token detail window, which appears after a new token has been generated. This is our once chance to copy it.
Note: Once we have clicked the “Close” button, we will not be able to view this token again.
With the token and the DB API endpoint, we should be able to connect our application to Astra DB.
Terminating an Astra DB instance
From the Astra DB service view, click on the three-dots menu, and select “Terminate.” We will be asked to type the name of our Astra DB database to confirm, as shown in Figure 7. Click on the “Terminate database and service” button to continue.
Note: We should receive an email once the Astra DB instance has been terminated.
Figure 7 – Type the database name to confirm it for termination.
In this short post, we introduced the new watsonx.data integration for Astra DB. We showed how to manage the lifecycle of an Astra DB instance, as well as how to generate and obtain connection credentials. This new feature gives watsonx.data and Astra DB users more flexibility and control over their data platform, and opens the door for a wide range of future data integrations.
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