Monday was announced the general availability of the Compute Optimized Gen2 tier of Azure SQL Data Warehouse.  With this performance optimized tier, Microsoft is dramatically accelerating query performance and concurrency.

The changes in Azure SQL DW Compute Optimized Gen2 tier are:

• 5x query performance via a adaptive caching technology. which takes a blended approach of using remote storage in combination with a fast SSD cache layer (using NVMes) that places data next to compute based on user access patterns and frequency
• Significant improvement in serving concurrent queries (32 to 128 queries/cluster)
• Removes limits on columnar data volume to enable unlimited columnar data volume
• 5 times higher computing power compared to the current generation by leveraging the latest hardware innovations that Azure offers via additional Service Level Objectives (DW7500c, DW10000c, DW15000c and DW30000c)
• Added Transparent Data Encryption with customer-managed keys

Azure SQL DW Compute Optimized Gen2 tier will roll out to 20 regions initially, you can find the full list of regions available, with subsequent rollouts to all other Azure regions.  If you have a Gen1 data warehouse, take advantage of the latest generation of the service by upgrading.  If you are getting started, try Azure SQL DW Compute Optimized Gen2 tier today.

More info:

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