James works at Microsoft as a big data and data warehousing solution architect where he has been for most of the last ten years. Before that he was an independent consultant working as a Data Warehouse/Business Intelligence architect and developer. He is a prior SQL Server MVP with over 35 years of IT experience. Check out his book Deciphering Data Architectures: Choosing Between a Modern Data Warehouse, Data Fabric, Data Lakehouse, and Data Mesh.
The Data Science Virtual Machine (DSVM) is a customized VM image on Microsoft’s Azure cloud built specifically for doing data science. It has many popular data science and other tools pre-installed and pre-configured to jump-start building intelligent applications for advanced … Continue reading →
I had previously blogged about the Data Warehouse Fast Track for SQL Server 2016, a joint effort between Microsoft and its hardware partners to deliver validated, pre-configured solutions that reduce the complexity of implementing a data warehouse on SQL Server … Continue reading →
If you are looking at providing high availability (HA) for SSAS, here are 3 options: Install SSAS on a Windows Server Failover Cluster (WSFC) Here’s a good article. The main issue with this option is that SSAS isn’t cluster-aware, so … Continue reading →
With so many product options to choose from for building a big data solution in the cloud, such as SQL Data Warehouse (SQL DW), Azure Analysis Services (AAS), SQL Database (SQL DB), and Azure Data Lake (ADL), there are various combinations … Continue reading →
Another Microsoft event and another bunch of exciting announcements. At the Microsoft Build event this week, the major announcements in the data platform space were: Azure Cosmos DB Azure Cosmos DB is the next big leap in the evolution of … Continue reading →
Announced today are some really cool new Power BI features: Power BI Premium Previously available were two tiers, Power BI Free and Power BI Pro ($10/user/month). The problem with Power BI Pro is that for large organizations, this can add … Continue reading →
Yesterday was the Microsoft Data Amp event where a bunch of very exciting announcements were made: SQL Server vNext CTP 2.0 is now available and the product will be officially called SQL Server 2017: Runs on Linux and Docker Support … Continue reading →
There are a number of options for using Azure for free. This is very useful for those of you who are not familiar with Azure and want to “play” with it: Create a free Azure account and get $200 in … Continue reading →
The new buzzword in the industry is “Artificial Intelligence” (AI). But exactly what is AI and how does it compare to “machine learning” and “deep learning”? The best definitions I have seen come from the excellent article “Why Deep Learning … Continue reading →
There are various Microsoft tools that you can use to help you migrate your database (updated 1/16/19): Data Migration Assistant (DMA) – enables you to upgrade to a modern data platform by detecting compatibility issues that can impact database functionality … Continue reading →
Azure Data Lake Analytics (ADLA) is a distributed analytics service built on Apache YARN that allows developers to be productive immediately on big data. This is accomplished by submitting a job to the service where the service will automatically run it … Continue reading →
I previously talked about PolyBase and its enhancements (see PASS Summit Announcements: PolyBase enhancements). There is some confusion on PolyBase use cases as they are different depending on whether you are using PolyBase with Azure SQL Data Warehouse (SQL DW) or … Continue reading →
Azure SQL Database (SQL DB) has increased its max database size from 1TB to 4TB at no additional cost. Customers using P11 and P15 premium performance levels can use up to 4 TB of included storage at no additional charge. … Continue reading →
Below I have attempted to list the various options for reporting off of Hadoop (HDInsight, HDP, Cloudera) using Power BI Desktop and Excel. Some of the data sources prompt you to choose the Data Connectivity mode of either Import or … Continue reading →
I see a lot of confusion when it comes to Azure Data Factory (ADF) and how it compares to SSIS. It is not simply “SSIS in the cloud”. See What is Azure Data Factory? for an overview of ADF, and I’ll assume … Continue reading →
There can sometimes be confusion, in IoT scenarios, between IoT Hub and Event Hub, as they can both be valid choices for streaming data ingestion. My Microsoft colleague, Steve Busby, an IoT Technology Specialist, is here to clear up the … Continue reading →
Microsoft’s end goal is for Azure to become the best cloud platform for customers to run their data workloads. This means Microsoft will provide customers the best environment to run their big data/Hadoop as well as a place where Microsoft … Continue reading →
In a perfect world a data warehouse would always return all queries very quickly, no matter what the size or complexity of the data warehouse. But the reality is that sometimes we won’t get the performance we need from the … Continue reading →
Microsoft has created data gateways as a way that cloud products such as Power BI and Azure Machine Learning can access on-prem data, often called a hybrid model. This is most useful for companies that do not want to put … Continue reading →
I have been seeing the term “HTAP” mentioned a lot recently, and I thought I would briefly explain the term. HTAP stands for Hybrid Transactional and Analytical Processing. HTAP is used to describe the capability of a single database that can … Continue reading →