dataMinds News Round up –
January 2023

Azure

In for a Synapse Espresso? In this episode, Stijn Wynants & Liliam Cristiman Leme elaborate about dedicated SQL pool and the distributed SQL database capability inside Azure Synapse Analytics.

Let’s get coffee!

Dying to know what’s new in store for Azure Synapse Analytics? This month, Ryan Majidimehr focuses on increased Spark performance, the new Kusto Emulator, as well as additional updates in Apache Spark for Synapse, Synapse Data Explorer and Machine Learning. 

Azure Synapse Analytics Representational State Transfer (REST) APIs are secure HTTP service endpoints that support creating and managing Azure Synapse resources using Azure Resource Manager and Azure Synapse web endpoints. In this article, Abid Nazir Guroo provides instructions on how to setup and use Synapse REST endpoints and describe the Apache Spark Pool operations supported by REST APIs.

SQL

SQL Server 2022 is GA & there are a lot of new features that could be of interest. Beginning with SQL Server 2012, Microsoft has launched a new release of SQL Server every two years at most. This puts IT professionals in a situation where we must decide if updating to the latest version is worth the time and costs. To help with this decision, James Serra provides his top 10 of new feature for SQL Server 2022.

Database systems always face several obstacles, yet performance is often one of the key metrics to determine if a database application is meeting its goals. There are several things that can be done to improve performance such as tuning code to implementing better physical resources such as memory, computing power, and storage. One of the primary bottlenecks for database systems is the lack of sufficient storage throughput and because database applications rely heavily on storage, a poorly implemented storage strategy can quickly become a problem. In this article, Joseph D’Antoni looks at several areas where storage makes a difference for SQL Server databases and a solution to help solve these storage bottlenecks.

Power BI

Ever struggled setting up or using Power BI gateways? Reza Rad has you covered with his “All you need to know” walkthrough. This guide explains all about the installation and configuration of the gateway and how to connect aPower BI dataset to it!

How about combining a passion for escape games with Power BI? Jana Van Hoe pulled this off with her Harry Potter based escape game! It is your turn to show you are a true (data) wizard!🧙‍♀️🔮 – Are you able to escape?

Make sure to also check out the precursor’s edition by Gomathy Viswanathan and Ashwini Nayak!