Load NetApp ONTAP data to DuckDB

NetApp ONTAP REST API allows management and automation of ONTAP storage clusters through RESTful endpoints. Everything needed to build a working NetApp ONTAP → DuckDB pipeline is on this page: the API's base URL, authentication, endpoints, pagination and incremental field — plus a prompt that hands the whole job to your coding agent.

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Build your NetApp ONTAP to DuckDB pipeline

Paste this prompt into Claude, Codex, or Cursor. The agent does the rest.

PromptCopy prompt
Run uvx dlthub-init@latest to build a pipeline from NetApp ONTAP to DuckDB and run it on dltHub

That scaffolds a dltHub workspace and installs the dltHub AI harness — the project rules, the secrets-management skill, and the dlt MCP server your agent needs to work safely. From there it reads the NetApp ONTAP API, proposes the endpoints to load, then writes, runs and validates the pipeline while you review rather than type. Credentials are inspected through MCP tools, so your agent never reads secrets.toml itself. How the LLM-native workflow works →

Prefer to write it yourself? Every fact the agent uses is below.

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NetApp ONTAP API at a glance

These values come from the NetApp ONTAP API reference — the authoritative source if anything here looks out of date.

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How do I authenticate with the NetApp ONTAP API?

ONTAP supports HTTP Basic authentication (Base64-encoded 'username:password') and OAuth 2.0. OAuth 2.0 requests require an 'Authorization: Bearer ' header.

1. Get your credentials

NetApp ONTAP does not use a singular static 'API key' in the conventional sense. Instead, authenticate by creating a user account enabled for HTTP access. For Basic Authentication, use your standard ONTAP username and password (base64 encoded in the request header). For enhanced security, create a local user with the appropriate role (e.g., 'admin') via the CLI: 'security login create -user-or-group-name -application http -authmethod password -role admin -vserver <cluster_name>'. If your environment supports it, OAuth 2.0 (Bearer tokens) or certificate-based authentication are recommended alternatives.

2. Add them to .dlt/secrets.toml

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[sources.netapp_ontap_source]
username = "your_username"
password = "your_password"
# Alternatively, if using an OAuth2 token:
# api_token = "your_bearer_token"

dlt reads this file automatically at runtime. With the harness, the setup-secrets skill prompts you for the values and never handles the raw credential in chat. For production, see setting up credentials with dlt.

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What NetApp ONTAP data can I load into DuckDB?

These are the NetApp ONTAP endpoints dlt can load into DuckDB:

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How do I load only new NetApp ONTAP records?

NetApp ONTAP exposes time on support/ems/events, so dlt can request only the records that changed since the last run. Set it as the cursor_path and dlt tracks the high-water mark for you between runs.

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{"name": "events", "endpoint": {
    "path": "support/ems/events",
    "data_selector": "records",
    "incremental": {"cursor_path": "time", "initial_value": "2024-01-01T00:00:00Z"},
}}

On the first run dlt loads everything from initial_value; on every run after that it requests only what changed and appends with write_disposition="merge" if you set a primary key. See incremental loading.

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What does the generated NetApp ONTAP pipeline look like?

A standard dlt REST API pipeline — the same code you would write by hand, loading /api/cluster and /api/storage/ from the NetApp ONTAP API into DuckDB:

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import dlt
from dlt.sources.rest_api import RESTAPIConfig, rest_api_resources

@dlt.source
def netapp_ontap_source(api_key=dlt.secrets.value):
    config: RESTAPIConfig = {
        "client": {
            "base_url": "https://<cluster_mgmt_ip_address>/api",
            "auth": {"type": "bearer", "token": api_key},
        },
        "resources": [
            {"name": "events", "endpoint": {"path": "support/ems/events", "data_selector": "records"}},
            {"name": "volumes", "endpoint": {"path": "storage/volumes", "data_selector": "records"}}
        ],
    }
    yield from rest_api_resources(config)


def load_netapp_ontap_to_duckdb() -> None:
    pipeline = dlt.pipeline(
        pipeline_name="netapp_ontap_pipeline",
        destination="duckdb",
        dataset_name="netapp_ontap_data",
    )
    load_info = pipeline.run(netapp_ontap_source())
    print(load_info)


if __name__ == "__main__":
    load_netapp_ontap_to_duckdb()

Run it with python netapp_ontap_pipeline.py. The agent iterates on this until it loads cleanly — you review and approve, rather than write it from scratch.

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How do I query NetApp ONTAP data in DuckDB?

dlt creates one table per resource. Query the loaded data with Python or SQL — or ask your agent to, through the MCP server's execute_sql_query tool.

Python (pandas DataFrame):

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import dlt

data = dlt.pipeline("netapp_ontap_pipeline").dataset()
df = data.volumes.df()
print(df.head())

SQL:

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SELECT * FROM netapp_ontap_data.volumes LIMIT 10;

See querying your data with dataset and exploring it in marimo notebooks.

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How do I deploy the NetApp ONTAP to DuckDB pipeline in production?

The pipeline runs locally, which is ideal for prototyping and one-off analysis. When you need it on a schedule, monitored on every load, and shared with your team, deploy the same dlt code on the dltHub platform — no infrastructure to maintain. The prompt above already ends with "run it on dltHub", so your agent can take it there directly.

• Deploy & schedule — run the pipeline as a managed job with automatic retries.
• Monitor — observable job queues, alerting, and load metrics for every run.
• Transform — promote raw NetApp ONTAP loads into governed, documented models.
• Visualize & share — explore data in notebooks and publish live dashboards instead of static screenshots.

Book a demo →

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What other destinations can I load NetApp ONTAP data to?

dlt loads into any of these — only the destination argument changes:

Set dlt.pipeline(destination="snowflake") and add credentials in .dlt/secrets.toml. On the dltHub platform the same pipeline runs against a managed Iceberg lakehouse. See the full destinations list.

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Next steps

• Ready for production? Book a demo of the dltHub platform →
• dlt LLM-native workflow docs
• REST API source reference
• Join the dlt community on Slack