Databases
Engineering Analytics

How to load data from AWS CloudTrail to Redis

Learn how to use Airbyte to synchronize your AWS CloudTrail data into Redis within minutes.

TL;DR

This can be done by building a data pipeline manually, usually a Python script (you can leverage a tool as Apache Airflow for this). This process can take more than a full week of development. Or it can be done in minutes on Airbyte in three easy steps:

  1. set up AWS CloudTrail as a source connector (using Auth, or usually an API key)
  2. set up Redis as a destination connector
  3. define which data you want to transfer and how frequently

You can choose to self-host the pipeline using Airbyte Open Source or have it managed for you with Airbyte Cloud.

This tutorial’s purpose is to show you how.

What is AWS CloudTrail

AWS CloudTrail is a web service developed to simplify and provide assistance with AWS accounts. Enabling compliance, governance, and operational and risk auditing, it allows users to monitor, log, and document AWS account-related activity in an easily searchable format. With its comprehensive account event history function, CloudTrail helps users analyze and troubleshoot security and operational issues, detect unusual account activity, and much more by increasing visibility into customers’ user and resource activity.

What is Redis

Redis is an open-source, in-memory data structure store that can be used as a database, cache, and message broker. It supports a wide range of data structures such as strings, hashes, lists, sets, and sorted sets. Redis is known for its high performance, scalability, and flexibility. It can handle millions of requests per second and can be used in a variety of applications such as real-time analytics, messaging, and session management. Redis also provides advanced features such as pub/sub messaging, Lua scripting, and transactions. It is widely used by companies such as Twitter, GitHub, and StackOverflow.

Integrate AWS CloudTrail with Redis in minutes

Try for free now

Prerequisites

  1. A AWS CloudTrail account to transfer your customer data automatically from.
  2. A Redis account.
  3. An active Airbyte Cloud account, or you can also choose to use Airbyte Open Source locally. You can follow the instructions to set up Airbyte on your system using docker-compose.

Airbyte is an open-source data integration platform that consolidates and streamlines the process of extracting and loading data from multiple data sources to data warehouses. It offers pre-built connectors, including AWS CloudTrail and Redis, for seamless data migration.

When using Airbyte to move data from AWS CloudTrail to Redis, it extracts data from AWS CloudTrail using the source connector, converts it into a format Redis can ingest using the provided schema, and then loads it into Redis via the destination connector. This allows businesses to leverage their AWS CloudTrail data for advanced analytics and insights within Redis, simplifying the ETL process and saving significant time and resources.

Step 1: Set up AWS CloudTrail as a source connector

1. First, navigate to the AWS Management Console and log in to your account.
2. Once logged in, search for the CloudTrail service and select it.
3. In the CloudTrail dashboard, select the Trails option from the left-hand menu.
4. Click on the name of the trail you want to use as your source connector.
5. In the trail details page, scroll down to the section labeled "Management events" and click on the "Edit" button.
6. In the "Data events" section, click on the "Add data event" button.
7. Select the type of data event you want to capture and configure the settings as needed.
8. Once you have configured the data event, click on the "Save" button to save your changes.
9. Next, navigate to the Airbyte dashboard and select the "Sources" option from the left-hand menu.
10. Click on the "Create a new source" button and select the AWS CloudTrail connector.
11. Enter your AWS access key ID and secret access key in the appropriate fields.
12. Enter the name of the S3 bucket where your CloudTrail logs are stored.
13. Enter the name of the CloudTrail trail you want to use as your source connector.
14. Click on the "Test" button to ensure that your credentials are valid and that Airbyte can connect to your CloudTrail logs.
15. Once the test is successful, click on the "Create" button to create your AWS CloudTrail source connector in Airbyte.

Step 2: Set up Redis as a destination connector

1. First, navigate to the Airbyte website and log in to your account.
2. Once you are logged in, click on the "Destinations" tab on the left-hand side of the screen.
3. Scroll down until you find the Redis destination connector and click on it.
4. You will be prompted to enter your Redis connection details, including the host, port, password, and database number.
5. Once you have entered your connection details, click on the "Test" button to ensure that your connection is working properly.
6. If the test is successful, click on the "Save" button to save your Redis destination connector settings.
7. You can now use the Redis destination connector to send data from Airbyte to your Redis database.
8. To set up a data integration pipeline, navigate to the "Sources" tab and select the source connector that you want to use.
9. Follow the prompts to enter your source connector settings and configure your data integration pipeline.
10. Once your pipeline is set up, you can run it to start sending data from your source to your Redis database using the Redis destination connector.

Step 3: Set up a connection to sync your AWS CloudTrail data to Redis

Once you've successfully connected AWS CloudTrail as a data source and Redis as a destination in Airbyte, you can set up a data pipeline between them with the following steps:

  1. Create a new connection: On the Airbyte dashboard, navigate to the 'Connections' tab and click the '+ New Connection' button.
  2. Choose your source: Select AWS CloudTrail from the dropdown list of your configured sources.
  3. Select your destination: Choose Redis from the dropdown list of your configured destinations.
  4. Configure your sync: Define the frequency of your data syncs based on your business needs. Airbyte allows both manual and automatic scheduling for your data refreshes.
  5. Select the data to sync: Choose the specific AWS CloudTrail objects you want to import data from towards Redis. You can sync all data or select specific tables and fields.
  6. Select the sync mode for your streams: Choose between full refreshes or incremental syncs (with deduplication if you want), and this for all streams or at the stream level. Incremental is only available for streams that have a primary cursor.
  7. Test your connection: Click the 'Test Connection' button to make sure that your setup works. If the connection test is successful, save your configuration.
  8. Start the sync: If the test passes, click 'Set Up Connection'. Airbyte will start moving data from AWS CloudTrail to Redis according to your settings.

Remember, Airbyte keeps your data in sync at the frequency you determine, ensuring your Redis data warehouse is always up-to-date with your AWS CloudTrail data.

Use Cases to transfer your AWS CloudTrail data to Redis

Integrating data from AWS CloudTrail to Redis provides several benefits. Here are a few use cases:

  1. Advanced Analytics: Redis’s powerful data processing capabilities enable you to perform complex queries and data analysis on your AWS CloudTrail data, extracting insights that wouldn't be possible within AWS CloudTrail alone.
  2. Data Consolidation: If you're using multiple other sources along with AWS CloudTrail, syncing to Redis allows you to centralize your data for a holistic view of your operations, and to set up a change data capture process so you never have any discrepancies in your data again.
  3. Historical Data Analysis: AWS CloudTrail has limits on historical data. Syncing data to Redis allows for long-term data retention and analysis of historical trends over time.
  4. Data Security and Compliance: Redis provides robust data security features. Syncing AWS CloudTrail data to Redis ensures your data is secured and allows for advanced data governance and compliance management.
  5. Scalability: Redis can handle large volumes of data without affecting performance, providing an ideal solution for growing businesses with expanding AWS CloudTrail data.
  6. Data Science and Machine Learning: By having AWS CloudTrail data in Redis, you can apply machine learning models to your data for predictive analytics, customer segmentation, and more.
  7. Reporting and Visualization: While AWS CloudTrail provides reporting tools, data visualization tools like Tableau, PowerBI, Looker (Google Data Studio) can connect to Redis, providing more advanced business intelligence options. If you have a AWS CloudTrail table that needs to be converted to a Redis table, Airbyte can do that automatically.

Wrapping Up

To summarize, this tutorial has shown you how to:

  1. Configure a AWS CloudTrail account as an Airbyte data source connector.
  2. Configure Redis as a data destination connector.
  3. Create an Airbyte data pipeline that will automatically be moving data directly from AWS CloudTrail to Redis after you set a schedule

With Airbyte, creating data pipelines take minutes, and the data integration possibilities are endless. Airbyte supports the largest catalog of API tools, databases, and files, among other sources. Airbyte's connectors are open-source, so you can add any custom objects to the connector, or even build a new connector from scratch without any local dev environment or any data engineer within 10 minutes with the no-code connector builder.

We look forward to seeing you make use of it! We invite you to join the conversation on our community Slack Channel, or sign up for our newsletter. You should also check out other Airbyte tutorials, and Airbyte’s content hub!

What should you do next?

Hope you enjoyed the reading. Here are the 3 ways we can help you in your data journey:

flag icon
Easily address your data movement needs with Airbyte Cloud
Take the first step towards extensible data movement infrastructure that will give a ton of time back to your data team. 
Get started with Airbyte for free
high five icon
Talk to a data infrastructure expert
Get a free consultation with an Airbyte expert to significantly improve your data movement infrastructure. 
Talk to sales
stars sparkling
Improve your data infrastructure knowledge
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter and get the community’s new enlightening content along with Airbyte’s progress in their mission to solve data integration once and for all.
Subscribe to newsletter

Connectors Used

What should you do next?

Hope you enjoyed the reading. Here are the 3 ways we can help you in your data journey:

flag icon
Easily address your data movement needs with Airbyte Cloud
Take the first step towards extensible data movement infrastructure that will give a ton of time back to your data team. 
Get started with Airbyte for free
high five icon
Talk to a data infrastructure expert
Get a free consultation with an Airbyte expert to significantly improve your data movement infrastructure. 
Talk to sales
stars sparkling
Improve your data infrastructure knowledge
Subscribe to our monthly newsletter and get the community’s new enlightening content along with Airbyte’s progress in their mission to solve data integration once and for all.
Subscribe to newsletter

Connectors Used

Frequently Asked Questions

What data can you extract from AWS CloudTrail?

AWS CloudTrail provides access to a wide range of data related to AWS account activity and resource usage. The following are the categories of data that can be accessed through the API:  

1. Event history: This includes information about all the events that have occurred in an AWS account, such as API calls, console sign-ins, and resource changes.  
2. Resource activity: This category includes data related to the usage of AWS resources, such as EC2 instances, S3 buckets, and RDS databases.  
3. User activity: This category includes data related to user activity in an AWS account, such as user sign-ins, password changes, and access key usage.  
4. Security analysis: This category includes data related to security events in an AWS account, such as failed login attempts, unauthorized access attempts, and changes to security groups.  
5. Compliance auditing: This category includes data related to compliance auditing in an AWS account, such as changes to IAM policies, CloudTrail configuration changes, and VPC network changes.  

Overall, the AWS CloudTrail API provides a comprehensive view of AWS account activity and resource usage, making it a valuable tool for monitoring and managing AWS environments.

What data can you transfer to Redis?

You can transfer a wide variety of data to Redis. This usually includes structured, semi-structured, and unstructured data like transaction records, log files, JSON data, CSV files, and more, allowing robust, scalable data integration and analysis.

What are top ETL tools to transfer data from AWS CloudTrail to Redis?

The most prominent ETL tools to transfer data from AWS CloudTrail to Redis include:

  • Airbyte
  • Fivetran
  • Stitch
  • Matillion
  • Talend Data Integration

These tools help in extracting data from AWS CloudTrail and various sources (APIs, databases, and more), transforming it efficiently, and loading it into Redis and other databases, data warehouses and data lakes, enhancing data management capabilities.