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The setup process consists of two main steps:
  1. Create your Nekt account
  2. Set up your cloud environment (AWS or GCP)
The entire setup process should take around 5-10 minutes.

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Feel free to watch the video tutorial below for a visual walkthrough, or follow the step-by-step instructions right after it.

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Step 1: Create your account

  1. Go to https://app.nekt.ai/signup and enter your first name, last name, and email (preferably your company email). Click Continue.
  2. Follow the instructions on your email to verify your account. You’ll need to define your password at this point.
  3. Log in with the email and password you just created.

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Step 2: Create the company workspace

  1. Add your company logo.
  2. Enter your company name, size, country, and timezone. Click Continue.

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Step 3: Set up your cloud environment

Currently, we have full support for AWS and GCP.
  1. To run your workspace with AWS, we need to create a stack with all the necessary resources. Before we do that, make sure your AWS account meets the following requirements:
    • You have an active paid AWS account
      Free-tier accounts are not supported because some resources needed for the stack are only available on paid plans.
    • No previous Nekt workspace exists in this AWS account. If you’ve gone through this process before, delete any related stack to avoid conflicts.
  2. Select the AWS region for your Nekt workspace. If unsure, keep the default value — it’s our recommendation for the most cost-effective option. Click Continue.
  3. Click Open AWS CloudFormation to be redirected to AWS. This will open a new tab on the CloudFormation console with the Nekt stack. For more information on the resources that will be created, check the section below.
The CloudFormation stack provisions the following resources in your AWS environment:

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Core Infrastructure

  1. IAM Roles & Permissions
    • ECS Service Roles: Enable source and destination connectors to access data and store it in S3
    • EMR Service Roles: Allow sources and transformations to access your data catalog and perform data operations
    • Frontend Access Role: Enables data preview and exploration through the Nekt application
    • Server Orchestration Role: Allows Nekt to manage and coordinate all sources, destinations, and transformations
  2. Lambda Functions
    Custom functions that handle CloudFormation deployment tasks, including VPC IP retrieval, resource identifier notifications, and deployment completion notifications.
  3. Networking Infrastructure
    An isolated VPC with secure network architecture:
    • 1 public subnet and 2 private subnets
    • NAT instance with Elastic IP for secure outbound connectivity
    • Internet gateway for public subnet access
    • Security groups configured for each resource type
    Important: Ensure your AWS region has sufficient quota for “VPCs per Region” and “Internet gateways per Region” before deployment.
  4. Data Storage & Catalog
    • S3 Bucket: Secure storage location for all your data
    • AWS Glue Databases: Managed data catalog that integrates with Nekt’s platform for metadata management
  5. Container & Processing Infrastructure
    • ECR Repository: Private Docker registry for custom connector and transformation images
    • EMR Studio: Spark processing environment for data transformations and analysis
    • ECS Cluster: Container orchestration platform for running connectors

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On-Demand Resources

The following resources are provisioned automatically when you run data operations:
  1. AWS Fargate Tasks
    Serverless container execution for source and destination connectors
  2. EMR Application Jobs
    Spark-based processing jobs for data sources and transformations
  3. Amazon Athena
    Interactive query service used when exploring data through Nekt’s interface
Note: The workspace setup process is automated, so you don’t need to manually configure any resources beyond running the stack.
  1. Keep the pre-filled default values for the stack resources.
  2. Scroll down and check all checkboxes at the end of the page to allow the resources to be created.
  3. Click Create stack to start the creation process - this entire process should take less than 5 minutes.
  4. Click the refresh button to reload the page and check the status. When the stack creation process is completed, you’ll see the stack status change from CREATE_IN_PROGRESS to CREATE_COMPLETE.
  5. Go back to the Nekt app and you’ll be automatically redirected to the Set up your profile page.
Documentation coming soon.

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Step 4: Set up your profile

  1. Add your profile picture.
  2. Review your name and email information. Click Continue.
  3. Enter the current role you have at your company.
  4. You’ll be redirected to the Nekt Overview page.
Now, your workspace is ready! 🚀🚀 ➡️ Move on to the next page of this guide to learn how to Invite team members.

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Troubleshooting

  1. A few actions (like creating sources for example) might not work if your AWS Quotas are too low, specially if you have a new AWS account. Please check if you have at least 16 applied quotas on EMR Serverless service and request an increase if necessary.
    You don’t need to increase the Fargate quotas as shown on the video unless explicitly requested.
If you encounter any issues during onboarding or need assistance, feel free to reach out to our support team. We’re here to help you get started.
  1. If AWS takes too long to reply to your support request to increase your quotas, you can try reaching out to them via live chat, following the steps in the video below.
If they ask more details about the use case, you can share the following information:
We’re setting up a product called Nekt (nekt.com), which builds a Lakehouse on AWS for us, and to process data they use mostly EMR Serverless. The increase to at least 16vCPU is crucial to unblock my team from moving on with our data projects.