SQLBits 2020 Keynote from Edge to Cloud

The keynote for the 2020 SQLBits was delivered by Rohan Kumar on 'Digital Transformation from Edge to Cloud with Azure Data' . This celebrated the tools used to achieve digital transformation at breakneck speed within months and shared the innovations just launching. The Azure Data Strategy includes various tools such as cloud databases, Azure Synapse Analytics and Power BI. These tools enable innovation anywhere, on premises, at the edge and in the cloud. 

The Azure Data Strategy includes many tools, incorporating SQL Server.

Azure SQL Edge delivers intelligence to the edge. Azure SQL Edge is generally available.

Azure Synapse offers a new class of analytics. There were two announcements Public Preview of Azure Synapse Link for Azure Cosmos DB (Synapse SQL Serverless) and Private preview of Power BI performance accelerator for Azure Synapse Analytics.

Also announced was the Public preview of Power BI app for Teams.

A keynote full of ideas for innovation, how to drive a data strategy forward and help the environment in which we live in today

Microsoft Business Applications Summit

The Microsoft Business Applications Summit is now a digital event on May 6, 2020. Microsoft say get ready for the new digital event experience, with opportunities to hear from Microsoft executives, learn from experts, and connect with your community. Register today, at no cost to you!

The event will let you learn about the latest innovations and what is coming next in tools. Discover how Microsoft business applications work together to unify data to gain in-the-moment intelligence. In addition learn and explore the new capabilities across the Microsoft Power Platform.

Azure Open Datasets

Azure Open Datasets are curated public datasets that can be used to add scenario-specific features to machine learning solutions for more accurate models. Open Datasets are on Microsoft Azure and are available to Azure Databricks, Machine Learning service, and Machine Learning Studio. Access to the datasets is through the APIs and other products, such as Power BI and Azure Data Factory.

Microsoft Power BI Roadmap

Microsoft have created a new Power BI roadmap site. The public product roadmap provides a glimpse into what will be made available in the next wave of product updates.

There roadmap priorities are: 

• Unified platform for both self-service and enterprise B; to enable organizations to create a unified, scalable, global, governed, and secured BI platform.
• Agile, self-service data prep with big data; to facilitate collaboration and reusability among business analysts, data engineers, and data scientists.
• Pervasive application of AI; to make it easier for business users to determine what truly matters, by automatically uncovering hidden insights and identifying key drivers.

PowerBI Report Server

Power BI Report Server is similar to SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). Power BI Report Server is on premises, and hosts paginated reports in addition to the Power BI features. There are several types of reports

• Paginated (standard SSRS type reports)
• Interactive (PowerBI Desktop)
• Mobile
• Analytical (Excel)

PowerBI Pro enables sharing and collaboration with the following features 

• Build dashboards that deliver a 360-degree, real-time view of the business
• Keep data up-to-date automatically, including on-premises sources
• Collaborate on shared data
• Audit and govern how data is accessed and used
• Package content and distribute to users with app

There is increased functionality within PowerBI Pro. A comparison between the free PowerBI desktop edition and Pro version is in the table below. Only Pro users can publish content to app workspaces, consume apps without Premium capacity, share dashboards and subscribe to dashboards and reports. Free users can connect to all data sources using connectivity options such as DirectQuery, live connection and use the data gateway. 

Licensing Power BI Report Server

Power BI Report Server is available in two different license modes: 

• Power BI Premium  
• SQL Server Enterprise Edition with Software Assurance.

A Power BI Premium license enables creation of a hybrid deployment (cloud and on-premises).

Capacity

The session delivered by Isabelle Van Campenhoudt at SQL Saturday Cambridge shared this useful capacity planning  paper. It is based on the sample Power BI Report Server topology using virtual machines. 

References

Pricing

PowerBI Free vsPro comparison

Comparing PowerBI Report Server and the Power BI service

What is PowerBI Report Server?

Capacity Planning

MSBizAppsSummit Viewing

I am pleased to see the Microsoft Business Applications Summit has posted the sessions of the conference to view on-demand. These cover Dynamics 365, Power BI, PowerApps, Microsoft Flow and Excel.  The sessions cover the opening keynote, product visions and roadmaps and the intelligent edge, intelligent cloud and mixed reality, so plenty of viewing to catch up on if you missed out on the conference.

Power BI World Tour

The Power BI World Tour is a two-day event that will cover technical content designed for the Power BI Analyst, Developer/IT Admin, and new professional, by local industry experts. The dates are:

Melbourne, AUS August 21-22
Charlotte, NC August 28-29
Seattle, WA October 29-30
Montreal, CAN November 14-15
Sydney, AUS August 28-29
Copenhagen, DEN September 11-12
Dubai, UAE November 13-14
Dallas, TX November 28-29

Microsoft for the Modern Data Estate

The Microsoft Ignite session on the modern data estate was full of announcements. All around us, data is driving digital transformation. Modernize with SQL Server 2017 on Linux and Windows and Azure Data Services; deliver modern intelligent applications using technologies like Azure Cosmos DB and Azure Database for PostgreSQL.

The world is changing.  We need to help invest in the future without being tied to the past. AI is a fundamental pillar to leverage that. If businesses invests in data they outperform other companies. 

Data doesn’t need to leave the database for data science to take place.

The cloud first approach breeds faster innovation and SQL Server 2017 is proof of that.

Announcements

SQL Server 2017 on Linux, Docker , and Windows server

Supports for graph data and queries

Advances Machine Learning with R & Python

Native T-SQL scoring

Adaptive Query processing and Automatic Plan Correction

Vulnerability assessment for GDPR - preview

Intelligent insights into performance – preview

Support for Graph data and queries –GA

Adaptive query processing – GA

Native scoring and support for Azure Machine Learning - GA

SQL Database and Database Migration Service

Migration to the cloud is easy with this new service. 

Azure SQL Database is the intelligent cloud database for app developers. It learns and adapts, scales on the fly, enables multi-tenant SaaS apps, works in your environment, secures and protects. The systems of intelligence on SQL Database is shared.

Globally Distributed Applications

Announcing Azure functions for Azure Cosmos DB to build apps faster with a serverless infrastructure. 

Uncovering insights with big data and advanced analytics

The new Azure Data Factory allows easy modelling of diverse data integration scenarios. You can now with the preview service, easily move your SQL Server Integration Services (SSIS) workloads to cloud. There is also a data movements as a service with 30+ connectors. Azure SQL Data Warehouse has a compute- optimized tier and unlimited columnar storage in preview. The last announcement was the Power BI Report Server.

Enhancing Business Intelligence with Data Science

The heterogeneous nature of data has resulted in an evolution of the business intelligence platform. The traditional data warehouse architectures are now a part of a greater diverse set of products and tools available for use, to gain insight. This new architecture is in Microsoft Azure, which consists of information management, big data stores, machine learning and analytics and intelligence.

This huge number of tools are known as the Cortana Intelligence Suite. Cortana Intelligence is a platform and a process to perform advanced analytics from start to finish. It is a fully managed business intelligence, big data and advanced analytics offerings. Microsoft have been helping people learn the 14 new tools to explain and show how these fit together by using a mnemonic.

Say it Cortana, Cognitive Services, Bot Framework – intelligent assistant for speech and vision

See it Power BI – interactive report and visualization

Stream it Azure Stream Analytics – real time stream processing

Big it HD Insight – implementation of apache Hadoop

Learn it Azure Machine Learning and MRS – machine learning and R Server engine

Relate it Azure SQL DB, Data Warehouse, DocumentDB -  SQL and NoSQL engines

Store it Azure Data Lake –data storage and distributed processing

Bring it Azure Event Hubs – ingest data for web, IoT and apps

Move it Azure Data Factory – pipeline to move data in and out

Doc it Azure Data Catalog – documentation

Host it Microsoft Azure - IaaS, PaaS or SaaS

These tools are supplemented by a modified process model based on the CRISP-DM (Cross Industry Standard Process for Data Mining). CRISP-DM is a data mining process model that describes commonly used approaches that data mining experts use to tackle problems. CRISP-DM has six major phases. 

The Microsoft team science process is:

There are many tools to get started learning about data science and these a just a few.

A collection of data science tools

https://learnanalytics.microsoft.com/

Code samples

https://github.com/Azure/Cortana-Intelligence-Suite-Industry-Solution-How-To-Guides

https://github.com/Microsoft

Free eBooks from Microsoft Press - Microsoft Virtual Academy

https://mva.microsoft.com/ebooks

• Data Science with Microsoft SQL Server 2016
• Microsoft Azure Essentials: Fundamentals of Azure, Second Edition

Data science track in the Microsoft Professional Program

https://academy.microsoft.com/en-us/professional-program/data-science/

Power BI Visuals Gallery

There is now a gallery of visuals created by the Power BI community. You can browse through the visuals or submit one of your own for others to use. https://app.powerbi.com/visuals