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Should I load structured data into my data lake?
With data lakes becoming very popular, a common question I have been hearing often from customers is, “Should I load structured/relational data into my data lake?”. I talked about this a while back in...
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Azure Data Factory Data Flow
Azure Data Factory v2 (ADF) has a new feature in public preview called Data Flow. I have usually described ADF as an orchestration tool instead of an Extract-Transform-Load (ETL) tool since it has the...
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What product to use to transform my data?
If you are building a big data solution in the cloud, you will likely be landing most of the source data into a data lake. And much of this data will need to be transformed (i.e. cleaned and joined...
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Storage options for SQL Server database files in Azure
If you are using SQL Server in an Azure VM (IaaS) you have a number of options of where to store the database files (.mdf, .ldf, and .ndf). Most customers use managed disks, available in a number of...
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Azure Data Lake Store Gen2 is GA
Azure Data Lake Store (ADLS) Gen2 was made generally available on February 7th. In short, ADLS Gen2 is the best of the previous version of ADLS (now called ADLS Gen1) and Azure Blob Storage. ADLS...
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My latest presentations
I frequently present at user groups, and always try to create a brand new presentation to keep things interesting. We all know technology changes so quickly so there is no shortage of topics! There...
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Azure Data Explorer
Azure Data Explorer (ADX) was announced as generally available on Feb 7th. In short, ADX is a fully managed data analytics service for near real-time analysis on large volumes of data streaming (i.e....
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Two more of my presentations
I recently made available two more presentations that you might find helpful. Feel free to download them and present them to others (adding a line that you got them from me is all I ask). There is a...
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Where should I clean my data?
As a follow-up to my blogs What product to use to transform my data? and Should I load structured data into my data lake?, I wanted to talk about where you should you clean your data when building a...
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Microsoft Build event announcements
Another Microsoft event and another bunch of exciting announcements. At the Microsoft Build event last week, the major announcements in the data platform and AI space were: Machine Learning Services...
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Common Data Model
The Common Data Model (CDM) is a shared data model that is a place to keep all common data to be shared between applications and data sources. Another way to think of it is is a way to organize data...
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The Microsoft Power Platform
The Microsoft Power Platform consists of three products: Power BI, PowerApps, and Microsoft Flow. I find customers are confused on the use cases of these products and how they compare to other...
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Big Data Workshop
A challenge I have with customers who want to get hands-on experience with the Azure products that are found in a modern data warehouse architecture is finding a workshop that covers many of those...
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Top Modern Data Warehouse questions
Below are the top 15 questions I am seeing from customers looking to build a modern data warehouse in the cloud, and the blogs that I have wrote that try to answer each question (I have updated most...
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Top SQL Server migration questions
Below are the top 12 questions I am seeing from customers looking to migrate on-prem SQL Server to Azure, and the blogs that I have wrote that try to answer each question (I have updated most of these...
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Podcasts on Modern Data Warehouse
I did a couple of recent podcasts that I wanted to mention: The first one was with Kirby Repko from the YouTube channel SQLTalk: Modern Data Warehouse Design with James Serra (15 minutes). Check out...
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New product: Azure Data Share
A brand new product by Microsoft called Azure Data Share was recently announced. It is in public preview. To explain the product in short, any data which resides in Azure storage can be securely...
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Ways to access data in ADLS Gen2
With data lakes becoming popular, and Azure Data Lake Store (ADLS) Gen2 being used for many of them, a common question I am asked about is “How can I access data in ADLS Gen2 instead of a copy of the...
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Databricks Delta Lake
Introduced in April 2019, Databricks Delta Lake is, in short, a transactional storage layer that runs on top of cloud storage such as Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) Gen2 and adds a layer of...
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Microsoft Ignite Announcements
Microsoft Ignite has always announced many new products and new product features, and this year was no exception. Many exciting announcements, and below I list the major data platform related...
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