Connect to Dremio

Securely connect your Hex workspace to your Dremio data lakehouse.

info

• Users need the Admin workspace role to create a shared workspace data connection.
• Users need Can Edit or higher project permissions to create project data connections.

Dremio is a data lakehouse that functions as a semantic layer and query engine, allowing you to run analytics directly on data stored in cloud object storage (like S3, ADLS, or GCS) and across multiple data sources without moving or copying data. Unlike traditional data warehouses, Dremio doesn't store your data—it creates a virtualized view and uses technologies like Apache Arrow for high-performance in-memory processing and reflections (materialized views) for query acceleration.

Dremio is ideal if you're building a data lakehouse architecture and want to avoid data duplication, or if you need to query data across multiple sources (databases, data lakes, warehouses) without ETL. However, considerations for Hex users include:

1. Query performance depends heavily on how well your data is optimized (file formats, partitioning) and whether appropriate reflections are configured. Poorly optimized data can lead to slow queries.
2. Since Dremio is a query engine rather than a data warehouse, you'll need to manage the underlying data storage separately. If you primarily work with data already in a single cloud warehouse like Snowflake or BigQuery, using those directly may be simpler than adding Dremio as a layer.

How to get set up

1. Log into your Dremio account.
2. Locate your JDBC URL in your Dremio account (General information → Project Settings).
3. Generate a personal access token from your Dremio account (instructions to generate).
4. In Hex, go to Settings → Data sources.
5. Click + Connection, select Dremio, and fill out the fields below.

Basic settings

1. Name and Description - Set a display name and optional description to help identify your data connection.
2. JDBC connection - The JDBC URL located in your Dremio account (General information → Project Settings).
3. Access token - The personal access token generated for this data connection (instructions to generate).

Additional settings

The data connection form includes several optional sections:

• Advanced - Optional settings like custom SQL formatting, including schema data for AI, and connecting via SSH.
• Access - Optional data connection permissions.
• Schema browsing - Recommended settings like scheduling schema browser refreshes and schema filtering, both of which are recommended for performance and AI agent accuracy.

tip

If you use a firewall to restrict database access, you'll need to add Hex's IP addresses to your allowlist.