Data Analytics
Azure Synapse Analytics
The data warehouse for large scale analytics on an Azure native estate, and the usual starting point for a later move to Microsoft Fabric.
Product
Azure Synapse AnalyticsAzure Synapse Analytics is the data warehouse used for large scale analytics where the estate is Azure native rather than Fabric first. It holds the modelled warehouse that the semantic model and the dashboards read, fed by the ingestion layer from the source systems. It is also the most common migration source when an organisation later moves its analytics estate onto Microsoft Fabric, and that move is planned as a staged migration rather than a rebuild.
How it works
- The existing Azure estate is reviewed, so the warehouse is designed against the sources, the volumes, and the reporting already in use.
- Ingestion pipelines load source data into the warehouse on a schedule agreed with the teams that own each source system.
- The warehouse is modelled in layers, raw through validated to enriched, so a correction is made once and every report inherits it.
- The semantic model and its measures are built on the enriched layer and published to Microsoft Power BI.
- Where a move to Microsoft Fabric is intended, the model and the pipelines are documented as the migration path rather than left to be rediscovered later.
A problem it solves
Month-end reporting runs against the operational database, so analytical queries compete with the transactions the business is still recording and a report covering several years of history takes hours to produce. Azure Synapse Analytics holds that history in a warehouse designed for analytical work, so reporting stops loading the operational systems and finishes in time to be discussed.