SQL Server 2022 – Azure Synapse Link for SQL

Welcome to sixth in the series of our SQL Server 2022 feature specific posts. Last week we were looking at Contained Availability Groups and this week Azure Synapse Link for SQL.

When will we have SQL Server 2022?

For those of you don’t know, SQL Server 2022 is coming and should be released later in 2022. At the time of writing, you can now download SQL Server 2022 preview to try the new features in the latest release. ‘SQL Server 2022 is the most Azure-enabled release of SQL Server yet, with continued innovation across performance, security, and availability.’ – Microsoft.

What is Azure Synapse?

Azure Synapse brings together enterprise data warehousing and Big Data analytics into a ‘limitless’ analytics service. It therefore gives you the freedom to query data the way you want to using either server less or dedicated resources.

Azure Synapse Link for SQL

This new feature for SQL Server enables near real time analytics over operational data in Azure SQL Database or SQL Server 2022.

Azure Synapse Link for SQL enables you to run analytics, BI (business intelligence) and ML (machine learning) scenarios on your operational data with minimum impact on source databases with a new change feed technology. It does this with a seamless integration between operational stores including Azure SQL Database and SQL Server 2022 and Azure Synapse Analytics.

There are multiple benefits of using Azure Synapse Link for SQL to continuously replicate the data from Azure SQL Database or SQL Server 2022 with full consistency. These benefits include:

A minimum impact on the operational workload

Azure Synapse Link for SQL can automatically extract incremental changes from Azure SQL Database or SQL Server 2022. It can then replicate to Azure Synapse Analytics dedicated SQL pool with minimal impact on the operational workload.

No ETL or data integration logic Required

You can focus on analytical and reporting logic against operational data via all the capabilities within Azure Synapse Analytics as after going through a few clicks including selecting your operational database and tables, updates made to the operational data in Azure SQL Database or SQL Server 2022 are visible in the Azure Synapse Analytics dedicated SQL pool.

Near real-time insights into your operational data

Many insights including operational BI reporting, real time scoring and personalisation, supply chain forecasting, etc. can now be achieved by analysing operational data in Azure SQL Database or SQL Server 2022 in near real-time.

Hopefully that is a good brief introduction to Azure Synapse Link for SQL, next week we’ll be looking at the Multi-Write Replication so stay tuned!

Digital Samurai

Are you excited by the new version of SQL 2022? At Digital Samurai we certainly are! We would love to hear your thoughts.

It may also benefit you to know that on the 27th July 2022, extended support ended for SQL Server version 2012. Is this a version you are using, or any prior?

If you have any questions on SQL Server 2022 or upgrading to the later versions of SQL Server, then please feel free to get in touch and we will be very happy to assist.

Digital Samurai are a team of data and SQL experts that have that have experienced every version through the years – yes, all the way back to SQL Server 6.0! We also have a wealth of experience in upgrades and migrations and are always on hand to help.

Article resource: https://www.digitalsamurai.it/sql-server-2022-azure-synapse-link-for-sql/