Concepts

This topic introduces basic terms, used in this documentation and Skyvia interface.

Products

Skyvia provides several different, but integrated products for solving different data-related tasks. These are the following products: Data Integration, Backup, Query, and Connect. Each of the products has its own set of pricing plans and is priced separately. And if you use just one product, you don’t need to pay for other products.

Objects

Another key Skyvia concept is objects. We call everything that user can create on Skyvia as Skyvia objects. This term unites connections, integration packages, backups, user queries, connect endpoints, etc.

Don’t mix Skyvia objects with cloud objects. Skyvia objects are items that you create in Skyvia, and cloud objects are like tables with data in cloud data sources that Skyvia works with.

When using each Skyvia product, you create Skyvia objects of the corresponding kind — packages in Data Integration, backups in the Backup product, queries in the Query product, and endpoints in Connect.

Besides, there are two common kinds of Skyvia objects that are used by all products: connections and agents that are used for connecting Skyvia to data sources.

Connections

Connections are one of the key Skyvia concepts. Skyvia works with data sources via connections to them. They represent sets of connection parameters required to access data from the corresponding connector.

Connections to some of the supported cloud applications also store metadata cache — the information about cloud objects in this data source and their fields.

Connections you create can be used in all Skyvia products and are not priced separately. You can create as many connections to any data sources as you need in Skyvia, and this won’t increase the price. You can also have multiple connections to the same data source if necessary.

Agents

Agents are the instances of Skyvia agent application — an application for connecting Skyvia to data sources on the users’ computers or in their local networks. To identify an instance, each created Agent has a unique key, which you should download and place with the application.

Packages

A package is a unit of work in the Data Integration product that performs a set of data ETL operations between source and target connection. Packages consist of tasks — units of data extracting, transforming and loading process. A package can contain one or more tasks. Package is scheduled and executed as a whole, you cannot execute its tasks separately. Package log stores information about package runs and their results — success and error information.

Backups

A backup is a configuration of backing up data from a cloud data source. It also contains a set of snapshots — when a backup runs, it creates a snapshot of the data source data, specified in backup configuration.

Endpoints

In the Connect product you create web API endpoints, providing OData or SQL API. It is an API layer for data from a connection, which makes it available via the endpoint URL. Endpoints store their security settings (set of users and IP address ranges, for which access is allowed). OData endpoints also store endpoint model settings, determining which data source data are available via endpoint. Skyvia also logs all the requests to an endpoint in the endpoint log.

Queries

A query simply represents a visual query model (if a query is built via visual query builder) or an SQL command text.

Profile and Account

Profile contains user’s personal information (first name, last name, job title, password and other credentials) and serves for associating user with his/her account and with roles in certain workspaces. In the Profile, user can manage email notifications and skyvia newsletter subscription settings.

Account contains user’s subscriptions to Skyvia products, user’s payment details and payment history. If you are an account admin, you can invite other users to your account. Other users invited to the account as members can share subscription resources but cannot manage them or view any payment details. Account settings can be managed only by account admin.

Account also contains user’s workspaces with objects (connections, integration packages, backups, etc.). Every user, added to the workspace by account/workspace admin, is assigned a certain role based on which this user can perform tasks and other actions, having limited or no rights to manage overall account settings.

You can find more information about profiles and accounts in the Profile Management and Account Management sections.