Create linked services

Completed

Before you create a dataset, you must create a linked service to link your data store to the data factory. Linked services are much like connection strings, which define the connection information needed for Data Factory to connect to external resources. There are over 100 connectors that can be used to define a linked service.

A linked service in Data Factory can be defined using the Copy Data Activity in the ADF designer, or you can create them independently to point to a data store or a compute resources. The Copy Activity copies data between the source and destination, and when you run this activity you are asked to define a linked service as part of the copy activity definition

Alternatively you can programmatically define a linked service in the JSON format to be used via REST APIs or the SDK, using the following notation:

{
    "name": "<Name of the linked service>",
    "properties": {
        "type": "<Type of the linked service>",
        "typeProperties": {
              "<data store or compute-specific type properties>"
        },
        "connectVia": {
            "referenceName": "<name of Integration Runtime>",
            "type": "IntegrationRuntimeReference"
        }
    }
}

The following table describes properties in the above JSON:

Property	Description	Required
name	Name of the linked service.	Yes
type	Type of the linked service. For example: AzureStorage (data store) or AzureBatch (compute). See the description for typeProperties.	Yes
typeProperties	The type properties are different for each data store or compute. For the supported data store types and their type properties, see the dataset type table. Navigate to the data store connector article to learn about type properties specific to a data store.	Yes
connectVia	The Integration Runtime to be used to connect to the data store. You can use Azure Integration Runtime or Self-hosted Integration Runtime (if your data store is located in a private network). If not specified, it uses the default Azure Integration Runtime.	No

Example of a Linked Service

Azure SQL Database

The following example creates a linked service named "AzureSqlLinkedService" that connects to an Azure SQL Database named "ctosqldb" with the userid of "ctesta-oneill" and the password of "P@ssw0rd".

{
  "name": "AzureSqlLinkedService",
  "properties": {
    "type": "AzureSqlDatabase",
    "typeProperties": {
      "connectionString": "Server=tcp:<server-name>.database.windows.net,1433;Database=ctosqldb;User ID=ctesta-oneill;Password=P@ssw0rd;Trusted_Connection=False;Encrypt=True;Connection Timeout=30"
    }
  }
}

Azure Blob Storage

The following example creates a linked service named "StorageLinkedService" that connects to an Azure Blob Store named "ctostorageaccount" with the storage account key used to connect to the data store

{
  "name": "StorageLinkedService",
  "properties": {
    "type": "AzureStorage",
    "typeProperties": {
      "connectionString": "DefaultEndpointsProtocol=https;AccountName=ctostorageaccount;AccountKey=<account-key>"
    }
  }
}