Azure Data and Power BI News (July 2022)

Did I tell you already that I love summer? :-) July and August are probably my favorite months of the year. It's summer holidays time! I can take a few weeks off, calm down and take a break from work and technology, be closer to nature and spend more time with my family and friends. Wonderful time.

However, cloud technologies are constantly developing and receiving new features even during the summer holidays. That's why I can run this newsletter even now ;-) Let me share with you my findings related to Azure Data and Power BI I noted in July.

Azure Data

• Like every month, I'll start with Azure Synapse Analytics. The July monthly blog post contains a lot of updates. My favorites are the following: GA of Apache Spark 3.2 and Intelligent Cache in Synapse Spark, support for IPython in Synapse Notebook (IPython is now a default interpreter, providing new magic commands, better debugging and code auto-completion), ingestion of data from Azure Stream Analytics into Synapse Data Explorer .
• If you are interested in Synapse Link for SQL, I recommend a blog post Synapse Link for SQL Deep Dive by Steve Howard (Microsoft) on the Azure Synapse Analytics blog.
• Also, if you are interested in how Azure Synapse and Power BI datamart work together, Ryan Majidimehr and I recorded the 2nd episode of the Azure Synapse and Power BI Datamart - Better Together series. The 3rd episode is going to arrive this month, so stay tuned!
• The Azure Data Explorer team published a series of videos from 3-day ADX L300 workshop: 1) Overview, Ingestion, KQL , 2) Hands-on lab , 3) Time Series analytics, high concurrency apps and visualization . You can also find a guide to hands-on labs here: https://aka.ms/adx.partner.hol . If you are interested in log and telemetry analytics and you haven't played with ADX and KQL language, then I strongly recommend this workshop. Note, that Data Explorer is also available as one of the analytics engines in Azure Synapse so you can reuse what you learn about ADX when working with Azure Synapse as well.
• If you are working with Azure SQL, then you can't miss July update by Anna Hoffmann with tons of news and learning resources, including important information on SQL Server 2012 end of support . Also, make sure you subscribe to the Azure SQL YouTube channel and track the Data Exposed show at Microsoft Developer channel !
• The Data Integration team started the Azure Data Factory monthly update blog and video series (in addition to release notes )! If you track updates to Synapse Pipelines you will notice, that ADF and Synapse Pipelines get pretty much the same updates.
• Big news in Microsoft Purview! The public preview of Microsoft Purview Data Sharing is here which enables in-place data sharing for Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS Gen2) and Blob Storage. Watch the demo here: https://aka.ms/purview-data-share/overview-demo .
• Just like every month, the Azure data community provided a lot of new content in July. Here are some examples of contributions I spotted last month: two blog posts by Andy Cutler (Microsoft MVP) - How does Serverless SQL Pools deal with different file schemas? Part 3 – Delta and Use Azure Storage Logs to analyse Synapse Analytics Serverless SQL Pools Activity , two blog posts by Adrian Chodkowski (Synapse Influencer Champion) - Azure Synapse Resultset caching – how it works? and Loading stream data into Synapse with Event Hub and Stream Analytics , a blog post on Mounting ADLS point using Spark in Azure Synapse by Kamil Nowiński (Microsoft MVP), a blog post How to perform pagination in Azure Data Factory using Rest API (a solution to common problem of limited number of items in APIs response) by Ben Fedit, a blog post Delta Lake on Synapse Analytics Dedicated SQL Pool along with a cool piece of T-SQL code by Mark Pryce-Maher (Microsoft), a blog post Database Project for use with Azure Synapse Link for SQL Server 2022 (yes, you can have a CI/CD process for Synapse Link for SQL) by Kevin Chant (Microsoft MVP) and the 12th episode of a blog series Building a Data Mesh Architecture in Azure by Paul Andrew (Microsoft MVP) - do not miss the diagram presenting a draft of data mesh delivery roadmap there!
• In July I also added my 2 cents to the community. First, I was a speaker at Data Toboggan Cool Runnings 2022 and presented a session What's New and Cool in Azure Synapse Analytics . Secondly, I delivered a workshop Modern Data Warehouse Using Azure Synapse Analytics at Azure Data Engineering Bootcamp to support Ukrainian engineers who left their jobs and were looking to get some new skills/certifications ( Taras Kloba , thank you for inviting me to this great initiative!).

Power BI

• In July a big thing in the Power Platform world was the announcement of the Microsoft Power Platform 2022 release wave 2 . You can download the roadmap for a period between October 2022 and March 2023 in PDF version . My top 3 new Power BI features announced are: dataset authoring in the Power BI Service , query scale-out (Premium feature) and improvements to download for large models . Of course, I'm also delighted that we'll get the GA of cool features like Hybrid Tables or Log Analytics for analysis services engine events.
• The Power BI July 2022 Feature Summary contains several nice updates. My favorites are: Metric visuals updates (wow!), support for Power BI datasets with Dynamic M Query Parameters in composite models , Filled Map for Azure Maps visual , Power BI datamart connector in Get Data experience , Data Hub improvements in the Power BI Service (data preview and export!).
• But that's not all. In July Power BI entered the Augmented Reality! Check out this blog post to find out how you can use Power BI Mobile app to discover reports in the physical environment: “Data in space” in preview: Now Power BI can be truly everywhere .
• This month instead of a customer story let me share the Digital Equity Data Dashboard provided by Microsoft. The purpose of this report is help create better understanding of the economic opportunity gaps in towns, cities and neighborhoods across the United States. I wonder if any report like this has been ever created for Poland?
• I don't have to tell you that the Power BI community was super active in July, right? Here are only a few examples of the content I read and watched last month: a super useful blog post Custom Queries For “Detect Data Changes” In Power BI Incremental Ref resh by Chris Webb (Microsoft), a combo of blog post + video Power BI Viz Tricks - Line chart target areas by Mara Pereira, a playlist of almost 40 great videos with tips and tricks on Power BI Visuals & Design by Bas Dohmen, version 1.3 of Deneb custom visual by Daniel Marsh-Patrick (Microsoft MVP) generally available, three blog posts in Mastering DP-500 Exam series by Nikola Ilic (Microsoft MVP) on how to use external tools with Power BI - DAX Studio , Tabular Editor , Vertipaq Analyzer , and a blog post New Diagram: Power BI Datamart Overview by Melissa Coates (Microsoft MVP) with some cool diagrams and explanation of what Power BI datamart is and what its components are.

As in the previous months, you can find all the official July announcements for Azure and Power BI on the?Azure Updates website ?and the?Power BI blog . In addition, you can be up to date with Azure Synapse by tracking monthly update blog and with Power BI thanks to the?Power BI Release Plan ?report.

That's all folks! Just like every month, please, please, please - share your thoughts and findings with me and the community.

In the meantime, if you are going to take some time off, enjoy your vacation, have fun with your families and friends, load your batteries, and stay away from the connected world (I find it as the best way to get truly relaxed). All the best and until the next month!