dataMinds News Round up – June 2022

Azure

Dying to know what’s new in store for Azure Synapse Analytics? This month, Ryan Majidimehr got you covered with sections on the new Azure Synapse Influencer program, Synapse Data Explorer live query in Excel, a Data Warehouse Migration guide for Dedicated SQL Pools in Azure Synapse, how to export pipeline monitoring as a CSV, and a new Azure Synapse Data Explorer connector for Microsoft Power Automate, Logic Apps, and PowerApps. Other new features are in SQL, Spark, Synapse Data Explorer, data integration, and Synapse Link.

Detecting and recognizing faces programmatically can be very difficult. Azure Face service provides this capability to you as-a-service. Azure Face service is an API that you can call and use in your applications to detect faces and facial features in images. It comes with a pre-trained machine learning model, so you only have to use the service, not configure or manage it.

SQL Server 2022 is the most Azure-enabled release of SQL Server yet, with continued innovation across performance, security, and availability. It is part of the Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform, which unifies operational databases, analytics, and data governance.

Anyone can now download SQL Server 2022 preview to try the new features in this release.

Microsoft Build 2022

As every year in spring, Microsoft gathers the worldwide community of developers, software engineers, IT professionals, and companies again to announce the news of its services and platforms.

The 2022 edition took place between the 24th and the 26th of May & was freely accessible online. Interested in scrolling through a full recap of this year’s edition? Elena Canorea got you covered!

Microsoft Build 2022 was a jam-packed few days of sessions, announcements, and live interactive discussions with the global community. As a wide variety of topics were covered, Ricardo Duncan zooms in on Power Platform announcements.

Power Platform

One of the newest additions to the Power BI components is the Datamart. Power BI Datamart is more than just another feature, it is a major milestone where the development of Power BI solutions will be revolutionized based on that. This is a feature that helps both citizen data analysts and developers. In this article, Reza Rad explains what is a Power BI datamart, how it helps you in your Power BI implementation, and why you should use it.

The Power BI CAT team has been pretty busy rolling out new features lately. Among them are the heavily hyped Field Parameters. Not quite sure how they can fit your report scenario? Nikola Ilic leverages this new feature which has been shipped along with Power BI Desktop’s May release. Let’s bring some additional life to your Power BI reports.

Learning

Skills challenges to encourage learning and certification is a regular thing that Microsoft has done in the past around the Microsoft Build conference. This year is not different! Microsoft now launched the Microsoft Build 2022 Cloud Skills Challenge that gives you 8 learning challenges to choose from. Once you complete a skills challenge, you will earn a free Microsoft certification exam.