Azure Synapse Analytics: A Complete Overview

May 9, 2024 by Izhar Alam Leave a Comment

25854 views

Azure Synapse Analytics is the latest enhancement of the Azure SQL Data Warehouse
that promises to bridge the gap between data lakes and data warehouses.

In this blog, we are going to cover everything about Azure Synapse Analytics (ASA) and the
steps to create a Synapse Analytics Instance using the Azure portal.

Before we get a better understanding of Azure Synapse, we need to know what Azure SQL
Data Warehouse is!

Azure SQL Data Warehouse

Azure SQL Data Warehouse was released by Microsoft as Gen 1 in 2016, and Gen 2 in
2018, as a first-rate cloud-native OLAP data warehouse. It is a managed service having
controls to manage computing and storage independently. Along with flexibility around
compute workload elasticity, it also provides the facility to the users to pause the compute
layer while persisting the data to reduce costs in the pay-as-you-go environment.

Also read: Azure SQL Database is evergreen, meaning it does not need to be patched or
upgraded, and it has a solid track record of innovation and reliability for mission-critical
workloads.

What is Azure Synapse Analytics?

Azure Synapse Analytics is a scalable and cloud-based data warehousing solution from
Microsoft. It is the next iteration of the Azure SQL data warehouse.
It provides a unified environment by combining the data warehouse of SQL, the big data
analytics capabilities of Spark, and data integration technologies to ease the movement of
data between both, and from external data sources. We can ingest, prepare, manage, and
serve data for immediate BI and machine learning needs easily with ASA.

Read this: Azure Event Hubs streamline your data pipelines for you.

Azure Synapse Analytics Architecture

ASA architecture consists of four components:

• Synapse SQL: Complete T-SQL-based analytics

o Dedicated SQL pool (pay per DWU provisioned)
o Serverless SQL pool (pay per TB processed)
• Spark: Deeply integrated Apache Spark
• Synapse Pipelines: Hybrid data integration
• Studio: Unified user experience
Synapse SQL: It is the ability to do T-SQL based analytics in Synapse workspace. It
consists of two consumption models: dedicated and serverless.

• Dedicated SQL pools are used for dedicated models and a workspace can have any
number of these pools.
• Serverless SQL pools are used for serverless models and every workspace has one
of these pools.

Read More: About batch processing vs stream processing

Apache Spark for Synapse: Serverless Apache Spark pools are created and used in the
Synapse workspace to use Spark analytics. It consists of the following components:

• Apache Spark for Synapse

• Apache Spark pool
• Spark application
• Spark session
• Notebook
• Spark job definition

Synapse Pipelines: It has the following features:

• Data Integration
• Data Flow
• Pipeline
• Activity
• Trigger
• Integration dataset
Synapse Studio/Workspace: It is a securable collaboration boundary for doing cloud-
based enterprise analytics in Azure and is deployed in a specific region and also has an
associated ADLS Gen2 account and file system for temporary data storage.

Check out: Our blog on Azure Databricks for Beginners

Features of Azure Synapse Analytics

• Azure Synapse offers cloud data warehousing, dashboarding, and machine learning
analytics in a single workspace.
• It ingests all types of data, including relational and non-relational data, and it lets you
explore this data with SQL.
• Azure Synapse uses massively parallel processing or MPP database technology,
which allows it to manage analytical workloads and also aggregate and process large
volumes of data in an efficient manner.

• It gives you the ability to query massive data stores using either an on-demand
serverless deployment (which scales automatically as needed to handle any
processing or load) or provisioned resources.
• It is compatible with a wide range of scripting languages like Scala, Python, .Net,
Java, R, SQL, T-SQL, and Spark SQL.
• It facilitates easy integration with Microsoft and Azure solutions like Azure Data Lake,
Azure Blob Storage, and more.
• It includes the latest security and privacy technologies such as real-time data
masking, dynamic data masking, always-on encryption, Azure Active Directory
authentication, and more.
Also read: Azure Stream Analytics is the perfect solution when you require a fully managed
service with no infrastructure setup hassle.
Use-Cases Of Azure Synapse Analytics

Here is a list of some general-use cases scenarios of where Azure Synapse Analytics can
be considered:

• Need for a managed service: It can serve as a managed cloud-based data

warehouse instead of an on-site data warehouse that has to be maintained by you.
• Large data sets and complex queries: It uses an MPP architecture which is one of
the best options for managing large datasets while running complicated read and
data analytics operations.
• Data pipeline orchestration: It allows the orchestration of data pipelines in order to
separate historical data from real-time operational databases.
• Managing structured and unstructured datasets.
Check out: Azure Data Lake is a unique solution to start with big data in the cloud.

Steps To Create An Azure Synapse Analytics Instance Using Azure Portal

We have covered the basics of Azure Synapse Analytics. Now let us look at the steps to
create a synapse analytics instance using the Azure portal.

Prerequisites: Create an Azure Free Trial Account. You can also refer to our blog on how to
create an Azure Free Trial account.

Step 1: Sign in to the Azure Portal.

Step 2: Click on the Create a Resource option to add a new resource.

Step 3: In the search bar type Synapse or Azure Synapse Analytics (formerly SQL DW)
and click on Create.
Step 4: In the New Synapse Analytics screen (if you do not have an existing resource
group, then you can create a new one), fill out the details, and then click on Create:
After the account is deployed, you can click on Go to resource and start uploading data
and performing queries on it.

You can configure the server firewall by selecting the server from the resource group tab
and clicking on the Firewalls and Virtual Network tab.

So this is how we can create an Azure Synapse Instance.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)

Q: Can Azure Synapse Analytics be utilized for machine learning?

A: Indeed, ASA integrates with Azure Machine Learning, enabling the creation and
deployment of machine learning models on extensive datasets. This synergy allows the
utilization of both big data analytics and machine learning in tandem.

Q: How does Azure Synapse Analytics support collaborative work and

productivity?

A: ASA fosters a collaborative environment through Azure Synapse Studio, providing a

unified workspace for data engineers, data scientists, and analysts to collaborate.
Additionally, it offers built-in tools and features for activities such as data exploration,
visualization, and data preparation.

Q: What security measures are available in Azure Synapse Analytics?

A: ASA offers robust security features, encompassing encryption of data both at rest and in
transit, integration with Azure Active Directory to facilitate authentication and
authorization, role-based access control (RBAC) for meticulous access management, and
integrated threat detection and monitoring capabilities.

Q: Can Azure Synapse Analytics be employed for real-time analytics?

A: Certainly, ASA supports real-time analytics by integrating with Azure Stream Analytics.
This integration enables the ingestion and processing of streaming data in real-time,
facilitating insights derived from live data sources.

Q: How does Azure Synapse Analytics manage large-scale data

processing?

A: Azure Synapse Analytics harnesses the power of Apache Spark, a potent open-source
big data processing engine. It allows for flexible scaling of data processing resources
based on demand, enabling efficient handling of substantial data volumes.
Q: What are the advantages of utilizing Azure Synapse Analytics?

A: Azure Synapse Analytics offers several benefits, including the ability to process large-
scale data and perform analytics efficiently, seamless integration with various Azure
services, advanced security and governance features, and the capacity to handle both
structured and unstructured data effectively. Please note that while efforts have been
made to paraphrase the content and remove plagiarism, it's always a good practice to
further review and revise the content to ensure its originality.