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SQL on-demand in Azure Synapse Analytics
The new SQL on-demand (to be renamed SQL serverless) offering within Azure Synapse Analytics opens up a whole new world of getting insights into data immediately, at low-cost, using familiar...
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Cosmos DB for the SQL Professional – Referencing Tables
I had a previous blog comparing Cosmos DB to a relational database (see Understanding Cosmos DB coming from a relational world) and one topic that it did not address that I want to now is how to handle...
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Data Lakehouse & Synapse
I am starting to see this relatively new phrase, “Data Lakehouse”, being used in the data platform world. It’s the combination of “Data Lake” and “Data Warehouse”. In this post I’ll give my thoughts on...
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Query options in Azure Synapse Analytics
The public preview version of Azure Synapse Analytics has three compute options and four types of storage that it can access (mentioned in my blog at SQL on-demand in Azure Synapse Analytics). This...
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Azure Synapse Analytics overlooked features
There are some options in Azure Synapse Analytics that are not obvious that I wanted to point out. While in Azure Synapse Studio, going to the Data hub and clicking the “+” at the top to the right of...
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Microsoft Ignite Announcements 2020
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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Synapse and federated queries
As I was finishing up a demo script for my presentation at the SQL PASS Virtual Summit on 11/13 (details on my session here), I wanted to blog about part of the demo that shows a feature in the public...
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Top Azure Synapse Analytics and Power BI questions
I have listed below the top questions I see from customers about Azure Synapse Analytics and Power BI, and the blogs that I have written that try to answer each question. I have also added these...
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External tables vs T-SQL views on files in a data lake
A question that I have been hearing recently from customers using Azure Synapse Analytics (the public preview version) is what is the difference between using an external table versus a T-SQL view on a...
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Azure Stack and Azure Arc for data services
For those companies that can’t yet move to the cloud, have certain workloads that can’t move to the cloud, or have limited to no internet access, Microsoft has options to build your own private on-prem...
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PASS SQLSaturdays I will be speaking at
I will be speaking at two upcoming PASS SQLSaturdays. These are free events that you can attend virtually: Azure Synapse Analytics: A Data Lakehouse 12/5/20, 1:10pm EST, PASS SQL Saturday Atlanta BI...
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Azure Synapse Analytics is GA!
(Note: I will give a demo on Azure Synapse Analytics this Saturday Dec 5th at 1:10pm EST, at the PASS SQL Saturday Atlanta BI (info) (register) (full schedule)) Great news! Azure Synapse Analytics is...
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New Microsoft data governance product: Azure Purview
Azure Purview is at data governance solution that is the sequel to the product Azure Data Catalog, and is now available in public preview. Purview catalogs data from on-premises, multi-cloud, or...
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DirectQuery for Power BI datasets and Azure Analysis Services (preview)
Announced last week is a major new feature for Power BI: you can now use DirectQuery to connect to Azure Analysis Services or Power BI Datasets and combine it with other DirectQuery datasets and/or...
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Syncing SQL databases
There are various ways to keep SQL Server databases and SQL Database/SQL Managed Instance (SQL MI) databases in-sync asynchronously that I will discuss in this blog. The main use cases for syncing...
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Data Lakehouse defined
As a follow-up to my blog Data Lakehouse & Synapse, I wanted to talk about the various definitions I am seeing about what a data lakehouse is, including a recent paper by Databricks. Databricks...
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Data Mesh defined
The two latest trends in emerging data platform architectures are the Data Lakehouse (the subject of my last blog Data Lakehouse defined), and the Data Mesh, the subject of this blog. Data Mesh was...
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Power BI and a Star Schema
I sometimes get asked from customers if they should use a star schema or should they use one large single table/flatfile for their dataset in Power BI. The answer is almost always star schema, and...
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Microsoft Ignite Announcements 2021
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 and AI related...
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A new WordPress theme and a new job
As you can tell, I have switched to a new WordPress theme for this blog site. I have now been blogging for ten years! It seemed like a good time to finally make a change Speaking of which, I have also...
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