title: Can you connect a SqlActivity to a JdbcDatabase in Amazon Data Pipeline?
body: <p>Using Amazon Data Pipeline, I'm trying to use a SqlActivity to execute some SQL on a non-Redshift data store (SnowflakeDB, for the curious).  It seems like it should be possible to do that with a <a href="http://docs.aws.amazon.com/datapipeline/latest/DeveloperGuide/dp-object-sqlactivity.html" rel="nofollow">SqlActivity</a> that uses a <a href="http://docs.aws.amazon.com/datapipeline/latest/DeveloperGuide/dp-object-jdbcdatabase.html" rel="nofollow">JdbcDatabase</a>. My first warning was when the wysiwyg editor on Amazon didn't even let me try to create a JdbcDatabase, but I plowed on anyway and just wrote and uploaded a Json definition by hand, myself (here's the relevant bit):</p>
  
  <pre><code>{
    "id" : "ExportToSnowflake",
    "name" : "ExportToSnowflake",
    "type" : "SqlActivity",
    "schedule" : { "ref" : "DefaultSchedule" },
    "database" : { "ref" : "SnowflakeDatabase" },
    "dependsOn" : { "ref" : "ImportTickets" },
    "script" : "COPY INTO ZENDESK_TICKETS_INCREMENTAL_PLAYGROUND FROM @zendesk_incremental_stage"
  },
  {
    "id" : "SnowflakeDatabase",
    "name" : "SnowflakeDatabase",
    "type" : "JdbcDatabase",
    "jdbcDriverClass" : "com.snowflake.client.jdbc.SnowflakeDriver",
    "username" : "redacted",
    "connectionString" : "jdbc:snowflake://redacted.snowflakecomputing.com:8080/?account=redacted&amp;db=redacted&amp;schema=PUBLIC&amp;ssl=on",
    "*password" : "redacted"
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>When I upload this into the designer, it refuses to activate, giving me this error message:</p>
  
  <pre><code>ERROR: 'database' values must be of type 'RedshiftDatabase'. Found values of type 'JdbcDatabase'
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The rest of the pipeline definition works fine without any errors.  I've confirmed that it activates and runs to success if I simply leave this step out.</p>
  
  <p>I am unable to find a single mention on the entire Internet of someone actually using a JdbcDatabase from Data Pipeline.  Does it just plain not work?  Why is it even mentioned in the documentation if there's no way to actually use it?  Or am I missing something?  I'd love to know if this is a futile exercise before I blow more of the client's money trying to figure out what's going on.</p>