Azure Data and Power BI News (September 2022)

September is behind us. As a standard, this month is the beginning of two things - the conference season and the autumn calendar season. So, a month of meeting friends in the community and a month of beautiful colors during walks and excursions. Oh, and a month of hot tea drunk from a nice cup (see the image above) ;-)

And how was this September in the world of Microsoft data technology? Intense, very intense! Check it out for yourself.

Azure Data

• The Azure Synapse Analytics September Update contained some cool updates. My favorites: GA of MERGE statement , Gantt view in Integration Runtime monitoring (now you can easily see which pipeline execution overlap), automatic creation of statistics for OPENROWSET in CSV datasets by serverless SQL pool, embed Data Explorer dashboards in third-party apps.
• Also, if you work with Azure Synapse, do not miss two videos on the Azure Synapse YouTube channel, about Delta format and how Azure Synapse serverless SQL pool supports this format: Synapse Espresso: Introduction to Delta Tables and How to Query Delta Lake Tables in Lake Databases Using Serverless SQL .
• Talking about Azure Data Explorer (aka Kusto) - there is an awesome way to learn ADX: Kusto Detective Agency . Learn Kusto and KQL by solving 5 riddles, a new one published every two weeks. Gain new skills, win some cool badges and have a lot of satisfaction. I'm after the 2nd case and just can't wait to see the third!
• And if for some mysterious reason you do not know what Azure Data Explorer is, then I encourage you to read the blog post by Gilles L'Hérault "Demystifying Data Explorer " on the Azure Synapse Analytics blog and another one by Tzvia Gitlin Troyna "Check it out: Azure Data Explorer MS Learn modules " on the Azure Data Explorer blog. And if you want to catch up on what's new in ADX, there is a quarterly newsletter published on the ADX blog - see the September issue: Azure Data Explorer Newsletter 2022 .
• If you want to learn about the newest updates to Azure Data Factory, there is a recording of monthly video streaming from the product team. For me one of the coolest new updates to ADF is the Updated Pipeline Designer . Output gestures, floating toolbox and inline adding of activities in containers - awesome update!
• In September we go a solid update to Azure Stream Analytics . Up to 45% performance gain in stream processing, improved monitoring in Azure Portal, input/output/UDF configuration in query editor, new features of no-code editor - these are only a few of many updates to Stream Analytics this month.
• Working with Azure SQL? Do not miss the September update from by Anna Hoffman ! Most of all, check out for the newest episodes of the Data Exposed show!
• Last month we got a lot of awesome content from the Azure Data community. Some of the blog posts/videos I read/watched in September: a video Fake it 'til you make it - generating production quality test data at scale (on generating test data in Azure Synapse) by Barry Smart , a blog post Building a Data Mesh Architecture in Azure – Part 14 – Anti Patterns by Paul Andrew (Microsoft MVP), a video Behind the Hype: Why Data Mesh Is Not Right For You (yeah, Data Mesh is a hype, but is it really for every organization?) by Simon Whiteley (Microsoft MVP), a blog post Easier way to perform CI/CD for Azure Synapse Link for SQL Server 2022 by Kevin Chant (Microsoft MVP), a blog post Mastering DP-500: Synapse Serverless SQL and file types - the ultimate guide! (also, check out the whole Mastering DP-500 series ) by Nikola Ilic (Microsoft MVP), a blog post Purview Git Hub Resources (a nice synthesis of the available GitHub resources for Microsoft Purview) by Dr Victoria Holt FBCS (Microsoft MVP), a blog post Elastic Queries with Azure SQL Database and Synapse Analytics Serverless SQL Pools by Andy Cutler (Microsoft MVP).
• My 2 cents for the Azure Data community this month: together with Ryan Majidimehr we recorded a video "Data Enrichment with AI " - the 4th episode of the Azure Synapse and Power BI Datamart - Better Together series on the Azure Synapse Analytics YouTube channel . Unfortunately, I was not able to get to the Microsoft Power Platform Conference 2022 in Orlando, missed the opportunity to present my Azure Synapse + Power BI session to the Power Platform community and meet some friends in person. As if that was not enough, private and business topics kept me at home, and I did not make it to Data Mass Summit Gdansk 2022 . Well, maybe next year...

Power BI

• Power BI is not slowing down! The September 2022 Feature Summary contains some super cool updates to the products. My favorites: cross-tenant dataset sharing (this is a big step towards the data sharing scenarios!), discoverability for B2B content , auto-generate reports on existing datasets , and hierarchical axis by default (finally!).
• But hey, that's not all! In September the Power BI team announced the “Horizontal Fusion” - a DAX query optimization by merging smaller data source queries into a larger query, and with that minimizing the number of roundtrips. This is huge and can be a game changer if you heavily use the DirectQuery mode!
• Also, we got a security update to Power BI datamarts - AAD-based filtration . Now the administrator of the Power BI tenant can decide which AAD users/groups can create datamarts.
• Great news for Power Platform fans! In September you got the Power BI report and dataset management in Power Apps Solutions . Watch this video Manage and Embed Power BI Reports and Datasets as Part of a Power Platform Solution to see the announced features in action. Embedding and managing Power BI reports in Power Platform solutions has never been so easy!
• And last but not least, we got the support for USERCULTURE DAX function in Power BI Premium . This function makes it easier to translate table data to the locale defined by the viewer’s preferences in the Power BI service.
• Now it's time for some snacks from the Power BI community members. My favorite content in September: a blog post with some cool tip Activating inactive relationships the smart way by Bernat Agulló Roselló (Microsoft MVP), a blog post 8 Power BI features that every architect should know (really nice wrap-up of Enterprise-grade features of Power BI) by Adrian Chodkowski , a blog post Implement both RLS and OLS together in Power BI by Jihwan Kim , a blog post Is Your Corporate Network Hurting Power BI Report Performance? by Chris Webb (Microsoft), a blog post Power BI using Service Principal with Synapse Data Explorer (Kusto) Pool by Dan English (Microsoft).

As every month, you can find all the official August 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.

Also, if you are in Poland, the offline meetings of Data Community Poland and Microsoft Azure User Group Poland are back after summer holidays!

That's it for today! As always, please share your findings and thoughts. Looking forward to reading your comments! Thanks, and until the next reading.