Evaluating Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics: Benefits and Pricing
Written on
Chapter 1: Introduction to Azure Synapse Analytics
Microsoft’s Azure Synapse Analytics serves as the successor to Azure SQL Data Warehouse, aiming to enhance its modern Data Warehouse and Big Data strategy. This platform allows businesses to analyze their data more efficiently and swiftly.
Section 1.1: Key Benefits of Azure Synapse
What are the main advantages that Microsoft highlights?
- Robust Scalability: Azure Synapse enables users to derive insights from their Data Warehouses and Big Data systems rapidly, while also applying machine learning models to enhance smart applications. The unified interface significantly reduces project development time, streamlining the process of creating end-to-end analytics solutions.
- Data Integration without Barriers: Users can conduct analytics on operational and application data without needing to relocate data, thanks to Azure Synapse Link. The platform also prioritizes security, offering advanced features like column-level and row-level security, along with dynamic data masking [1].
While these features sound impressive, they echo similar claims made by Google regarding BigQuery and by AWS concerning Redshift.
Section 1.2: Pricing Structure
The cost for Azure Synapse is $5 per TB of processed data, which is competitive compared to other leading cloud providers. Additionally, users must consider the expenses related to storage and data integration.
Setting up Azure Synapse may surprise users familiar with other platforms like Google’s BigQuery. It requires establishing the service within a resource group, adding public datasets, and configuring a firewall to permit queries from specific IP addresses. While this initial setup contrasts with Google’s more immediate query capabilities, the configuration process is relatively quick. Once set up, users can observe how efficiently Synapse processes large datasets:
Chapter 2: Summary and Comparison
As a long-time Google Cloud user, I find that Azure Cloud shares some similarities. Azure Synapse presents a Data Warehouse solution that competes with BigQuery and AWS Redshift, offering user-friendly handling, comparable pricing, and satisfactory query performance. For long-time Microsoft clients, Azure Cloud provides a potent Data Warehouse option. The straightforward handling and scalability present advantages over on-premise solutions.
Determining which cloud solution reigns supreme is subjective and largely depends on existing IT infrastructure. Long-term Microsoft users may find Azure to be the superior choice, while those from Google Cloud or newcomers to cloud services might prefer Google’s more user-centric approach.
Sources and Further Readings
[1] Azure, Azure Synapse Analytics (2021)