In-Database Overview

In-database processing enables blending and analysis against large sets of data without moving the data out of a database, which can provide significant performance improvements over traditional analysis methods that require data to be moved to a separate environment for processing.

Performing analysis in the database can save processing time. Using Alteryx Designer as the interface, in-database workflows integrate with standard workflows for additional data blending and analysis.

Spatial objects are currently not supported with In-Database tools.

Supported databases

In-Database Support	Predictive In-Database Support
Amazon Redshift
Apache Spark ODBC
Cloudera Impala
Databricks
EXASOL
Hive
HP Vertica
IBM Netezza
Microsoft Analytics Platform System
Microsoft Azure SQL Database
Microsoft Azure SQL Data Warehouse
Microsoft SQL Server 2008, 2012, 2014, 2016	Yes (2016)
MySQL
Oracle	Yes
Pivotal Greenplum
PostgreSQL
SAP Hana
Snowflake
Teradata	Yes

See Supported Data Sources and File Formats for the full list of data platforms supported by Alteryx.

See Predictive Analytics for more about predictive in-database support.

In-Database tools

	Tool Name	Tool Description
	Browse In-DB Tool	Review your data at any point in an In-DB workflow. Note: Each In-DB Browse triggers a database query and can impact performance.
	Connect In-DB Tool	Establish a database connection for an In-DB workflow.
	Data Stream In Tool	Bring data from a standard workflow into an In-DB workflow.
	Data Stream Out Tool	Stream data from an In-DB workflow to a standard workflow, with an option to sort the records.
	Dynamic Input In-DB Tool	Take In-DB Connection Name and Query fields from a standard data stream and input them into an In-DB data stream.
	Dynamic Output In-DB Tool	Output information about the In-DB workflow to a standard workflow for Predictive In-DB.
	Filter In-DB Tool	Filter In-DB records with a Basic filter or with a Custom expression using the database’s native language (e.g., SQL).
	Formula In-DB Tool	Create or update fields in an In-DB data stream with an expression using the database’s native language (e.g., SQL).
	Join In-DB Tool	Combine two In-DB data streams based on common fields by performing an inner or outer join.
	Macro Input In-DB Tool	Create an In-DB input connection on a macro and populate it with placeholder values.
	Macro Output In-DB Tool	Create an In-DB output connection on a macro.
	Sample In-DB Tool	Limit the In-DB data stream to a number or percentage of records.
	Select In-DB Tool	Select, deselect, reorder, and rename fields in an In-DB workflow.
	Summarize In-DB Tool	Summarize In-DB data by grouping, summing, counting, counting distinct fields, and more. The output contains only the result of the calculation(s).
	Transpose In-DB Tool	Pivot the orientation of a data table in an In-DB workflow. It transforms the data so you may view horizontal data fields on a vertical axis.
	Union In-DB Tool	Combine two or more In-DB data streams with similar structures based on field names or positions. In the output, each column will contain the data from each input.
	Write Data In-DB Tool	Use an In-DB data stream to create or update a table directly in the database.

In-Database predictive tools

	Tool Name	Tool Description
	Boosted Model Tool	The Boosted Model tool provides generalized boosted regression models based on the gradient boosting methods of Friedman.
	Decision Tree Tool	The Decision Tree tool constructs a set of if-then split rules that optimize a criteria to create a model that predicts a target variable using one or more predictor variables.
	Forest Model Tool	The Forest Model tool creates a model that constructs a set of decision tree models to predict a target variable based on one or more predictor variables.
	Linear Regression Tool	The Linear Regression tool constructs a linear function to create a model that predicts a target variable based on one or more predictor variables.
	Logistic Regression Tool	The Logistic Regression tool creates a model that relates a target binary variable (such as yes/no, pass/fail) to one or more predictor variables to obtain the estimated probability for each of two possible responses for the target variable.
	Score Tool	The Score tool evaluates a model and creates an assessment field, or score, that estimates the accuracy of the values predicted by the model.

See Predictive Analytics for more about predictive in-database support.

How in-database works

Data is streamed into and out of an in-database workflow using the Data Stream In and Data Stream Out tools, or by connecting directly to a database using the Connect In-DB tool. The Data Stream In and Data Stream Out tools use an In-DB anchor to connect to In-DB tools, and a standard workflow anchor to connect to standard workflow tools.

Define the connection to the database using the Connect In-DB tool, or use the Data Stream In tool to stream data from a standard workflow into a temporary table in the database.
Connect other In-Database tools to the workflow to process the data.
Use the Write Data In-DB tool to create or update a table in the database, or use the Data Stream Out tool to stream the In-DB results to a workflow for standard processing.
Run the workflow to process the data in the data platform. No results are returned to the Alteryx Engine until the complete in-database workflow has been processed.