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Azure Synapse Analytics versus Microsoft Fabric: A Side by Side Comparison

Azure Synapse Analytics versus Microsoft Fabric: A Side by Side Comparison

Barry Smart

In this post we compare Azure Synapse Analytics with Microsoft Fabric to understand how features map from Synapse to Fabric.
Data validation in Python: a look into Pandera and Great Expectations

Data validation in Python: a look into Pandera and Great Expectations

Liam Mooney

Implement Python data validation with Pandera & Great Expectations in this comparison of their features and use cases.
How to setup Python, PyEnv & Poetry on Windows

How to setup Python, PyEnv & Poetry on Windows

James Dawson

Explore using Python virtual environments & Poetry on Windows for smoother workflows, with a script & guide to enhance your dependency management experience.
How To Implement Continuous Deployment of Python Packages with GitHub Actions

How To Implement Continuous Deployment of Python Packages with GitHub Actions

Liam Mooney

This post demonstrates how to use GitHub Actions to automatically publish updates to your Python package to PyPI, and explores whether this constitutes Continuous Deployment
Customizing Lake Databases in Azure Synapse Analytics

Customizing Lake Databases in Azure Synapse Analytics

Ed Freeman

Explore Custom Objects in Lake Databases for user-friendly column names, calculated columns, and pre-defined queries in Azure Synapse Analytics.
How to create a semantic model using Synapse Analytics Database Templates

How to create a semantic model using Synapse Analytics Database Templates

Barry Smart

Explore Azure Synapse Analytics Database Templates and learn to create semantic models in this 2nd blog of the series.
Continuous Integration with GitHub Actions

Continuous Integration with GitHub Actions

Liam Mooney

This post gives an overview of Continuous Integrations and shows how you can implement it with GitHub Actions, with an accompanying example Python project
How to apply behaviour driven development to data and analytics projects

How to apply behaviour driven development to data and analytics projects

Barry Smart

In this blog we demonstrate how the Gherkin specification can be adapted to enable BDD to be applied to data engineering use cases.
What is the Shared Metadata Model in Azure Synapse Analytics, and why should I use it?

What is the Shared Metadata Model in Azure Synapse Analytics, and why should I use it?

Ed Freeman

A lesser known feature of Azure Synapse is the "Shared Metadata Model". Synapse has the capability to automatically synchronize tables created via Synapse Spark with objects you can query via the usual SQL Serverless endpoint, without any additional configuration. This article brings attention to this capability, highlighting the benefits and tradeoffs vs rolling your own SQL Serverless VIEWs.
Extract insights from tag lists using Python Pandas and Power BI

Extract insights from tag lists using Python Pandas and Power BI

Barry Smart

We often come across spreadsheets and CSV files that contain features which are a list of tags or categories. This blog article walks through a simple way of extracting insights from this data using a combination of Pandas for data wrangling and Power BI for analytics and visualisation.
Introduction to Containers and Docker

Introduction to Containers and Docker

Liam Mooney

Explore containerisation & Docker for app development & deployment. Learn to create containerised applications with examples in this intro guide.
How to test Azure Synapse notebooks

How to test Azure Synapse notebooks

James Broome

Explore data with Azure Synapse's interactive Spark notebooks, integrated with Pipelines & monitoring tools. Learn how to add tests for business rule validation.
How Azure Synapse unifies your development experience

How Azure Synapse unifies your development experience

Ian Griffiths

Modern analytics requires a multi-faceted approach, which can cause integration headaches. Azure Synapse's Swiss army knife approach can remove a lot of friction.
How to use SQL Notebooks to access Azure Synapse SQL Pools & SQL on demand

How to use SQL Notebooks to access Azure Synapse SQL Pools & SQL on demand

Howard van Rooijen

Wishing Azure Synapse Analytics had support for SQL notebooks? Fear not, it's easy to take advantage rich interactive notebooks for SQL Pools and SQL on Demand.
Using Databricks Notebooks to run an ETL process

Using Databricks Notebooks to run an ETL process

Carmel Eve

Explore data analysis & ETL with Databricks Notebooks on Azure. Utilize Spark's unified analytics engine for big data & ML, and integrate with ADF pipelines.
Using Python inside SQL Server

Using Python inside SQL Server

Ed Freeman

Do you have a bunch of data in SQL Server that you're using ODBC/JDBC to pull data to work with in Python? Using SQL Server's Python integration, you can connect to a SQL Server instance within your preferred IDE and perform the computations on the SQL Server Machine. No more clunky data transferring. Operationalizing a Python model/script is as easy as calling a stored procedure. Any application that can speak to SQL Server can invoke the Python code and retrieve the results. Easy! This blog will provide a few, simple examples which make use of this capability to carry out some simple Python commands, so you can get up and running as quickly as possible.