kohera-logo-regular.svg

We’ve taken Azure Synapse for a spin

Microsoft has recently taken us on a word lingo with the launch of Azure Synapse Analytics. At Kohera, we’ve experienced some confusion in the market between Azure Synapse as a standalone product and Azure Synapse Analytics as a SaaS platform.

We guess it’s time to set things straight once and for all, or at least for a while.

Azure Synapse Analytics

Azure Synapse Analytics is an integration layer on top of the Azure Synapse SQL Pool. The additional layer is in public preview mode, where the SQL Pools (Azure Synapse) are mature and production ready.

Azure Synapse Analytics offers:

  • The mature Azure Synapse SQL Pools
  • Perfect integration between various cloud components in one SaaS suite
  • SQL serverless (pay-as-you-go data exploration of files on data lake, simple data transformations and logical DWH)
  • Perfect integration between the data lake files and Synapse databases
  • Synapse Spark which allows you to develop in a Spark environment using Python, PySpark, Scala and C#. Synapse Spark is the MS implementation of the open-source Apache framework. It includes Delta Lake too. Azure Databricks is based on the open-source Spark and Delta Lake frameworks. Azure Databricks has made several improvements to the open-source framework.
  • Synapse pipelines (identical to the standalone Azure Data Factory)
  • Power BI integration in the Synapse Analytics SaaS suite

Azure Synapse

As mentioned, the core component of Azure Synapse Analytics is Azure Synapse. Azure Synapse is a mature standalone tool. It is a rebranding of Azure SQL Datawarehouse Gen2 and finds its roots in the SQL Parallel Datawarehouse. Azure Synapse is a specialized tool for heavy-duty DWH workloads.

We took Azure Synapse for a spin and we would like to share some lessons that we’ve learned about Synapse in the document below.

 

Group of computer programmers working in the office. Focus is on blond woman showing something to her colleague on PC.
Updating your Azure SQL server OAuth2 credentials in Power BI via PowerShell for automation purposes
The better way to update OAuth2 credentials in Power BI is by automating the process of updating Azure SQL Server...
2401-under-memory-pressure-featured-image
Under (memory) pressure
A few weeks ago, a client asked me if they were experiencing memory pressure and how they could monitor it...
2402-fabric-lakehouse-featured-image
Managing files from other devices in a Fabric Lakehouse using the Python Azure SDK
In this blogpost, you’ll see how to manage files in OneLake programmatically using the Python Azure SDK. Very little coding...
2319-blog-database-specific-security-featured-image
Database specific security in SQL Server
There are many different ways to secure your database. In this blog post we will give most of them a...
kohera-2312-blog-sql-server-level-security-featured-image
SQL Server security made easy on the server level
In this blog, we’re going to look at the options we have for server level security. In SQL Server we...
blog-security_1
Microsoft SQL Server history
Since its inception in 1989, Microsoft SQL Server is a critical component of many organizations' data infrastructure. As data has...