OceanBase Cloud leverages distributed architecture, columnar storage, and analytical engine capabilities to provide efficient data querying, analysis, and processing. In this topic, you will import a built-in dataset and execute sample SQL queries to experience the analytical performance and data visualization features of an analytical instance of OceanBase Cloud.
Background information
The built-in dataset "Employee Dataset" used in this topic is a simulated employee information database designed to demonstrate basic database operations. This dataset contains six tables including employee information, department details, and salary data.
Step 1: Create an OceanBase Cloud account
Navigate to the OceanBase official website, and click Get Started to redirect to the OceanBase Cloud console.
Click Sign Up.
On the Sign Up page, provide the necessary information for the registration, including your email, the verification code you receive via email, password, and your country.
Check the box of I agree to OceanBase International Privacy Policy and click Sign Up to create an account.
Step 2: Create an analytical instance
Log in to the OceanBase Cloud console with the account you just created.
Click Create Instance displayed on the page.
On the Create Instance page, select Dedicated (Analytical) under Instance Type.
Select your cloud vendor and the deployment region. OceanBase Cloud supports the following cloud vendors: AWS and Azure.
Select your instance specifications.
Parameter Description Instance Name Set the instance name. The name must be 2 to 64 characters in length and can contain only Chinese characters, digits, uppercase and lowercase letters, underscores, and hyphens. Storage Architecture - Shared Nothing: The computing resources and data storage are in the same node. Data is locally processed on the computing node.
- Shared Storage: This cloud-native architecture separates storage and computing in an instance by using multiple computing nodes and shared storage technology.
Version The OceanBase database version. Deployment Mode - Single-IDC Deployment: All nodes are located within the same zone. This deployment supports both two-node and three-node configurations within a single IDC. If you require this setup, please contact OceanBase technical support.
- Dual-IDC Deployment: Two nodes are deployed across two zones, with a third node deployed in a different zone solely for log synchronization.
- Multi-IDC Deployment: Primary and standby nodes are located in different zones, enabling disaster recovery across zones. This deployment comes at no additional cost and by default, all three zones are selected.
Zone Select the target zone. You can select the zone with the lowest network latency by using View Network Latency. - Single-IDC Deployment: Select 1 zone.
- Dual-IDC Deployment: Select 2 zones.
- Multi-IDC deployment: Select three zones.
Compute Select the compute specification as needed. Storage The storage specifications vary by compute specifications. Select the storage specification as needed. For more information, see Instance billing. Under More Settings, complete the following configurations.
Parameter Description Character Set The character set of the instance, including utf8mb4, utf16, gbk, gb18030, and binary. Table Name Case Sensitivity Specifies whether to enable case sensitivity for table names. By default, table names are case-insensitive. Time Zone The time zone of the instance. Specify the number of instances you want to create in the Quantity section.
In the Summary section on the right, confirm the configurations and then click Create Instance. You can then navigate back to the Instances page to view the creation progress.
Step 3: Create a workspace
In the OceanBase Cloud console, select Data Development > Workspaces from the left-side navigation pane.
On the Workspaces page, click Create Workspace.
In the Create Workspace dialog, configure the following settings and click OK to create the workspace:
Configuration Description Workspace Name Custom name for your workspace. Associated Instance Select the analytical instance you created in Step 2. Database Account Click Create Account to create a new database account for this workspace. Password Enter the password for the newly created database account.
Step 4: Import the sample dataset
On the Workspaces page, click the workspace name you created in Step 3 to enter the workspace details page.
In the left-side navigation pane, click Sample Datasets, search for the Employee Dataset card, and click it to view the dataset details.
Click Import to open the Load Sample Data dialog.
Click Create Account in the Select a Database Account dropdown menu.
After creating the account, select it and click Import.
Once the import task is complete, click Open Workbook in the Import Successful dialog to go to the Worksheets page.
Step 5: Execute sample SQL queries and experience data visualization
On the Worksheets page, click Create > Worksheet to create a new worksheet.
In the SQL editor of the worksheet, select the database you created in Step 2 from the Select a database dropdown. Copy the following sample SQL query into the editor and click the
button to execute it:-- This query shows the average salary by department, sorted by salary in descending order. SELECT d.dept_no, d.dept_name, AVG(s.salary) FROM departments d, salaries s, dept_emp de WHERE d.dept_no = de.dept_no AND de.emp_no = s.emp_no GROUP BY d.dept_no, d.dept_name ORDER BY AVG(s.salary) DESC;In the Results tab, click the
icon to switch to the chart view. You can configure various chart settings to visualize your SQL query results.