Open Catalog for Iceberg on GCP

Documentation Index

Fetch the complete documentation index at: https://docs.streamnative.io/llms.txt

Use this file to discover all available pages before exploring further.

This guide describes how to prepare a Snowflake Open Catalog (Polaris) for use with StreamNative Ursa as an Iceberg catalog on Google Cloud Platform (GCP).

Important: Polaris does not support reading buckets from a different region. The StreamNative Ursa cluster, the GCS bucket, and the Polaris catalog must all reside in the same region.

​

Prerequisites

• A Snowflake standard account
• A GCP project with permissions to create GCS buckets and IAM roles
• Access to the Snowflake Open Catalog feature

​

1. Create a Snowflake Open Catalog Account

The Snowflake Open Catalog console requires a dedicated Open Catalog account. From the standard Snowflake console, navigate to Admin -> Accounts and use the toggle to Create Snowflake Open Catalog Account. Configure the account with:

• Cloud: GCP
• Region: the region in which your GCS bucket resides
• Edition: any

Provide an admin username and password. After creation, click the Account URL to sign in to the Open Catalog console.

​

2. Create the Polaris Catalog

In the Snowflake Open Catalog console, create a new catalog. Configure the catalog with:

• External: disabled
• Storage provider: GCS
• Default base location: the GCS path used by the Ursa cluster (gs://<bucket>/<subpath>)

Open the catalog details and record the GCP_SERVICE_ACCOUNT value. Polaris uses this service account to access GCS, so it must be granted permission on the bucket.

​

3. Grant Bucket Permissions to the Polaris Service Account

​

3.1 Create a Custom IAM Role

In the GCP console, navigate to IAM & Admin -> Roles -> Create role and add the following permissions:

• storage.buckets.get
• storage.objects.create
• storage.objects.delete
• storage.objects.get
• storage.objects.list

​

3.2 Assign the Role to the Polaris Service Account

Open the bucket, navigate to PERMISSIONS -> View BY PRINCIPALS -> GRANT ACCESS. Add the GCP_SERVICE_ACCOUNT from step 3, choose the role created in step 4.1, and click SAVE.

​

4. Create a Connection (Service Principal)

In the Open Catalog console, create a new connection that StreamNative Ursa will use to authenticate. Configure with:

• Name: any name
• Create new principal role: enabled
• Principal Role Name: any name

After creation, record the Client ID and Client Secret — the secret cannot be retrieved later.

​

5. Create a Catalog Role and Grant Privileges

Navigate to Catalogs -> [your catalog] -> Roles -> + Catalog Role and create a role with the following privileges:

• NAMESPACE_CREATE
• NAMESPACE_LIST
• NAMESPACE_READ_PROPERTIES
• NAMESPACE_WRITE_PROPERTIES
• TABLE_LIST
• TABLE_CREATE
• TABLE_WRITE_DATA
• TABLE_READ_DATA
• TABLE_READ_PROPERTIES
• TABLE_WRITE_PROPERTIES

Click Grant to Principals Role and grant the catalog role to the principal role created in step 5. For background on the relationship between catalogs, catalog roles, principal roles, and principals, see the Polaris Quick Start.

​

Catalog Information Summary

When the steps above are complete, collect the following values for the StreamNative Ursa compaction service: For the next steps, see Configure Lakehouse Catalogs.