Live Connect - Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Anubhav P · an hour ago

Live Connect FAQ

Answers to the questions we hear most often about Live Connect, the SQL/BI access capability in RaptorDB Professional.

If you're setting this up for the first time, start with Getting started with Live Connect — this FAQ assumes you're already familiar with the basics (service accounts, egress_sql ACLs, driver installation) and are looking for answers to specific questions.

Getting started & availability

Is Live Connect available on RaptorDB Standard?

No. Live Connect is exclusive to RaptorDB Professional — it isn't available on RaptorDB Standard or on instances still running the MariaDB-based database.

Which platform release do I need?

Live Connect is available starting with the Australia release, and was also backported to Zurich P8+.

Is Live Connect available for self-hosted or hyperscaler deployments?

Not currently — Live Connect is available for ServiceNow-hosted (cloud) instances today.

Do I need to buy anything beyond RaptorDB Professional?

You'll need a Workflow Data Fabric (WDF) token entitlement (Live Connect usage is metered through it) and your own BI tool/client software (Power BI, Tableau, a JDBC/ODBC-capable SQL client, etc.) — the driver itself is a free download from the ServiceNow Store.

How it works

What's the difference between Live Connect and Table API?

They're built for different jobs. Table API is REST-based, one table at a time, capped at 10,000 rows per call — great for point integrations and CRUD operations. Live Connect is a JDBC/ODBC SQL endpoint that supports multi-table joins, aggregations, and filters pushed down to the database, with no row cap (bounded instead by a query timeout) — built for BI and analytics workloads.

Is Live Connect read-only?

Yes, by design. Only SELECT is supported — INSERT, UPDATE, DELETE, DDL statements, and stored procedures are all blocked at the API layer and this isn't configurable.

Are queries actually executed in the database, or pulled to the client and processed there?

Queries run as pushdown operations — joins, filters, and aggregations are resolved inside RaptorDB Professional, not on the client or driver side. Only the result set crosses the wire.

Can I query Live Archive data (the `ar_*` tables) through Live Connect?

Yes. Archive tables can be queried with the same SQL syntax as live tables — you'll just need a separate egress_sql ACL grant on the archive table (it doesn't inherit the grant from the live table). Use UNION ALL to combine live and archived results into one historical view.

Connectivity & drivers

What connectivity protocols are supported?

Both ODBC and JDBC.

Do I have to use ODBC on Windows and JDBC everywhere else?

Not strictly — that's just the typical pattern (ODBC is Windows-native, JDBC is commonly used on Mac/Linux), but both drivers work across operating systems. Use whichever fits your BI tool.

What's the setup process for the driver?

An admin installs the Live Connect server plugin on the instance, and each client machine installs the ODBC/JDBC driver package available from the ServiceNow Store — no instance restart required.

Does connecting require any firewall or network changes on my side?

Your ServiceNow admin needs to whitelist the IP address of every client machine that will connect — including BI server IPs for server-mode connections (e.g., Tableau Server, Power BI Gateway), not just individual users' machines. Connections from non-whitelisted IPs are rejected.

Can multiple users or BI tools connect at the same time?

Yes, using multiple service accounts. Connections share the instance's available app node capacity like any other request, so under heavy load additional connections may queue rather than fail outright.

Is there a connection pooling or concurrency limit I should plan around?

There's no hard concurrency ceiling, but throughput is finite — it's shared with the rest of your instance traffic. Plan your service account layout and refresh schedules with that in mind, especially for larger BI deployments.

Query capabilities & limits

What SQL is supported — a full dialect or a curated subset?

A broad, curated subset of ANSI SQL covering joins, aggregations, window functions, date/string functions, subqueries, and more — enough to cover the vast majority of BI reporting patterns. See the official SQL command reference for the full list.

Are there restrictions on how many tables I can join in one query?

No limit on the number of tables in a join.

Can I query any table, or are some off-limits?

An admin has to explicitly grant the egress_sql ACL on a table before it's queryable via Live Connect — this is mandatory and can't be bypassed, even by a system administrator. Your service account also needs read access (role-based) to the table.

What's the rate limit?

500 API calls per hour, shared across all service accounts and connections on the instance, resetting at the top of each wall-clock hour.

What's the query timeout?

5 minutes (300 seconds), covering the full round trip from first byte to last byte — execution plus result streaming. Queries that exceed this are cancelled, and no partial results are returned.

Is there a cap on how much data I can pull back?

No hard data-volume cap, but all data returned is metered — see the licensing section below. Design queries with selective filters and explicit column lists rather than SELECT * to keep results fast and token usage down.

Does Live Connect support parameterized queries or prepared statements?

Not currently.

Is Live Connect meant to be used for bulk data export or replication?

No — it's built for interactive analytics and BI query patterns: selective retrieval of the rows, columns, and time windows you actually need. It isn't intended as a bulk export pipe, a continuous replication mechanism, or an ETL replacement.

Performance

Does Live Connect use a read replica, or always hit the primary database?

If your instance has a read replica configured, Live Connect can be routed to it.

Are there published performance benchmarks?

No official published benchmarks — performance depends heavily on instance load, table size, query design, and hosting hardware, so we don't publish a single number. As a general practice: filter narrowly, select only the columns you need, and push aggregation into the SQL query rather than pulling raw rows into your BI tool.

BI tool compatibility

Which BI tools are supported?

Live Connect has been tested with Power BI (Import mode), Tableau Desktop and Server, Looker and Looker Studio, Microsoft Excel (via ODBC), SQL Server Management Studio, DBeaver, and other standard JDBC/ODBC-capable SQL clients.

Does Live Connect support Power BI DirectQuery mode?

No — only Import mode. DirectQuery re-queries the source on every user interaction (every click, every filter), which would burn through the 500 calls/hour limit almost immediately on a shared dashboard. Import mode pulls data once; users interact with the cached copy locally and refresh on demand or on a schedule.

Is there a preferred connector for Power BI — ODBC or JDBC?

If you're running Power BI on Windows, ODBC is the typical choice. There's no meaningful functional difference between the two drivers otherwise.

Security & governance

Are ServiceNow ACLs enforced on data returned via Live Connect?

Yes, in layers. Table-level access requires the egress_sql ACL, which is always enforced and can't be disabled. Row- and field-level ACLs are also enforced by default — evaluated against the result set before it's streamed back to the client — so a field a user can't see in ServiceNow won't show up in their query results either.

An admin can optionally apply the sn_sql_api_privileged_mode role to a service account to skip row/field-level evaluation for performance-sensitive workloads, if that fits their data access policy. Table-level ACL enforcement is never optional.

Once BI tools pull data out via Live Connect, do ServiceNow's access controls still apply?

No — ServiceNow's ACLs govern what's returned by the query, but once the result set has left the instance and lands in your BI tool or downstream store, protecting that copy of the data is up to that tool.

What authentication does Live Connect use?

Basic Auth with a dedicated, non-human service account. Because it's a service account rather than a personal login, we recommend adding it to your MFA exception list.

Is traffic encrypted?

Yes — all communication between the ODBC/JDBC driver and your instance is TLS-encrypted by default, with no extra configuration required.

Does Live Connect support domain separation?

Yes.

How do I review what's been queried through Live Connect?

Query activity is logged to the instance's syslog_transaction table, with detail available in the linked syslog records — useful for reviewing which requests hit the instance and when.

Capacity & licensing

How is Live Connect usage metered?

Two things are metered: API call rate (the 500-calls-per-hour limit) and data volume, which draws from your Workflow Data Fabric (WDF) token entitlement at a rate of 1 MB per token. WDF tokens are shared across all WDF-metered capabilities on your entitlement, not just Live Connect.

Can I purchase RaptorDB Professional and WDF tokens separately?

Yes, they're separate entitlements.

What happens if I run out of WDF tokens?

Reach out to your account team to review your options and usage.

Migrating from the legacy ODBC connector

I'm already using the older ODBC connector built on Table API. Do I need to migrate?

Not immediately — the legacy connector continues to be supported, and there's no official deprecation timeline. Live Connect is the newer, SQL-native path (it doesn't sit on top of Table API), and gives you multi-table joins and pushdown aggregation that the legacy connector doesn't.

Will my existing BI tool connection strings and settings work as-is if I switch to Live Connect?

It depends entirely on your current setup — validate your connection configuration against the new driver rather than assuming it will carry over unchanged. See the official documentation's migration section for guidance.

Still have questions?

Drop them in the comments below, or reach out through your account team — we'll keep this FAQ updated as new questions come up.