Windows

If you want to use a Windows client computer to access Amazon Athena, the Amazon Athena ODBC driver is required.

Windows system requirements

Install the Amazon Athena ODBC driver on client computers that will access Amazon Athena databases directly instead of using a web browser.

The Windows system you use must meet the following requirements:

• You have administrator rights

• One of the following operating systems:

  • Windows 11, 10, or 8.1

  • Windows Server 2019, 2016, or 2012

• At least 100 MB of available disk space

• Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable for Visual Studio for 64-bit Windows is installed.

Installing the Amazon Athena ODBC driver

To download and install the Amazon Athena ODBC driver for Windows

1. Download the AmazonAthenaODBC-2.x.x.x.msi installation file.

2. Launch the installation file, and then choose Next.

3. To accept the terms of the license agreement, select the check box, and then choose Next.

4. To change the installation location, choose Browse, browse to the desired folder, and then choose OK.

5. To accept the installation location, choose Next.

6. Choose Install.

7. When the installation completes, choose Finish.

Ways to set driver configuration options

To control the behavior of the Amazon Athena ODBC driver in Windows, you can set driver configuration options in the following ways:

• In the ODBC Data Source Administrator program when you configure a data source name (DSN).

• By adding or changing Windows registry keys in the following location:

  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\ODBC\ODBC.INI\YOUR_DSN_NAME

• By setting driver options in the connection string when you connect programmatically.

Configuring a data source name on Windows

After you download and install the ODBC driver, you must add a data source name (DSN) entry to the client computer or Amazon EC2 instance. SQL client tools use this data source to connect to and query Amazon Athena.

To create a system DSN entry

1. From the Windows Start menu, right-click ODBC Data Sources (64 bit), and then choose More, Run as administrator.

2. In the ODBC Data Source Administrator, choose the Drivers tab.

3. In the Name column, verify that Amazon Athena ODBC (x64) is present.

4. Do one of the following:

   • To configure the driver for all users on the computer, choose the System DSN tab. Because applications that use a different account to load data might not be able to detect user DSNs from another account, we recommend the system DSN configuration option.

     Note

     Using the System DSN option requires administrative privileges.

   • To configure the driver for your user account only, choose the User DSN tab.

5. Choose Add. The Create New Data Source dialog box opens.

6. Choose Amazon Athena ODBC (x64), and then choose Finish.

7. In the Amazon Athena ODBC Configuration dialog box, enter the following information. For detailed information about these options, see Main ODBC 2.x connection parameters.

   • For Data Source Name, enter a name that you want to use to identify the data source.

   • For Description, enter a description to help you identify the data source.

   • For Region, enter the name of the AWS Region that you will use Athena in (for example, us-west-1).

   • For Catalog, enter the name of the Amazon Athena catalog. The default is AwsDataCatalog, which is used by AWS Glue.

   • For Database, enter the name of the Amazon Athena database. The default is default.

   • For Workgroup, enter the name of the Amazon Athena workgroup. The default is primary.

   • For S3 Output Location, enter the location in Amazon S3 where the query results will be stored (for example, s3://DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET/).

   • (Optional) For Encryption Options, choose an encryption option. The default is NOT_SET.

   • (Optional) For KMS Key, choose an encryption KMS key if required.

8. To specify configuration options for IAM authentication, choose Authentication Options.

9. Enter the following information:

   • For Authentication Type, choose IAM Credentials. This is the default. For more information about available authentication types, see Authentication options.

   • For Username, enter a user name.

   • For Password, enter a password.

   • For Session Token, enter a session token if you want to use temporary AWS credentials. For information about temporary credentials, see Using temporary credentials with AWS resources in the IAM User Guide.

10. Choose OK.

11. At the bottom of the Amazon Athena ODBC Configuration dialog box, choose Test. If the client computer connects successfully to Amazon Athena, the Connection test box reports Connection successful. If not, the box reports Connection failed with corresponding error information.

12. Choose OK to close the connection test. The data source that you created now appears in the list of data source names.

Using a DSN-less connection on Windows

You can use a DSN-less connection to connect to a database without a Data Source Name (DSN). The following example shows a connection string for the Amazon Athena ODBC (x64) ODBC driver that connects to Amazon Athena.

DRIVER={Amazon Athena ODBC (x64)};Catalog=AwsDataCatalog;AwsRegion=us-west-1;Schema=test_schema;S3OutputLocation=
s3://DOC-EXAMPLE-BUCKET/;AuthenticationType=IAM Credentials;UID=YOUR_UID;PWD=YOUR_PWD;