Quick Start¶

The quickest and easiest way to get started with CrateDB is to create a new cluster in CrateDB Cloud. You can get started by following these simple steps:

Create User¶

To create your user account, you can either set up username and password, or use one of the supported authentication providers:

Username & Password

Register for an account on the CrateDB Cloud sign-in page.
Click on “Username & Password” on the right side.
At the bottom press “Sign up” and create a new user.
Verify your email address by navigating to the link in the confirmation email.
Log in using the username and password you just set up.

Authentication Provider

Once you signed in, you will be redirected to the CrateDB Cloud Console.

Note

If you sign in through an external authentication provider, a CrateDB Cloud user account will be auto-generated for you.
If your sign-up was not initiated through an invitation to a pre-existing CrateDB Cloud organization, a default organization named “My Organization” will be created automatically on your behalf. You can rename this organization later via the “Settings”.

Deploy Cluster¶

As next step, let’s deploy the first CrateDB cluster. If you are still viewing the “Clusters” page, please follow these steps:

Click on “Deploy cluster” in the middle of the screen.
Provide a cluster name, which will be part of the hostname of your cluster.
Select one of the available cloud regions.
Select the “FREE” compute size.
Click the blue “Deploy Cluster” button on the right side.

Once you deployed the cluster, you will be redirected to the next screen. CrateDB Cloud automatically generates a password for the admin user. You can change the password later if needed.

Copy the provided username and password.
Click “OK” on the bottom right.

You will be redirected to the cluster overview page. The cluster deployment might take a few minutes. Hold on until the deployment is finished, which will be indicated by a corresponding “Healthy as of a few seconds ago” message on the top left, before continuing with the next step.

Note

The “FREE” cluster can be started without providing payment details. You can use one free cluster per organization.
The cluster will be suspended if not used for 7 consecutive days, and will be deleted after an additional 7 days of inactivity.

Connect¶

Each CrateDB cluster comes with a built-in user interface. You can access it by selecting the blue “Open Admin UI” button. Alternatively, explore the 3rd party tools using the connecting details on the bottom of the page in the “Connecting to your cluster” section.

Click on “Open Admin UI”, and provide authentication credentials.
In the newly opened page click on “</>” to open the query console.
Run your first query:

SELECT *
FROM sys.summits 
LIMIT 20;

While the integrated sys.summits table can be used to run your first queries, you probably want to import your own data or start with one of our sample datasets.

Import Data¶

To import data in a CrateDB Cloud cluster, you can make use of the provided import mechanism in the cloud console, which can be found next to the cluster overview page in the “Import” tab.

Own Data

Click on “Import” tab on the top menu.
Drag and drop a file on the drop section or click “browse” to locate the file manually.
Select a file from your local disk.
Provide a valid table name e.g. my_table.
Adjust “Format” and “Compression” if necessary.
Click on the blue “Import” button.
Wait until the file is imported successfully

Using your preferred method (e.g. Admin UI) run the following query to display the first 100 records of your imported data.

SELECT *
FROM my_table
LIMIT 100;

Sample Dataset

Click on “Import” tab on the top menu.
Click on “URL” on the top right switch.
Click on “Use our demo data set” on the bottom left.
Click on the blue “Import” button.
Wait until the file is imported successfully

Using your preferred method (e.g. Admin UI) run the following query to display the first 100 records of the imported NYC taxi sample dataset:

SELECT *
FROM nyc_taxi
LIMIT 100;