Navigating the Bewildering Array of Data Services in Azure

23rd October 2020 · 49 min watch

By Ian Griffiths Technical Fellow I

Explore Azure's data handling options, including databases, storage, analytics, and ETL solutions, to make informed decisions for your application needs.

About this talk

SQLBits 2020

Azure offers multiple options for each aspect of data handling. It offers multiple relational databases, but there are also completely different models such as table and blob storage, data lakes, or the multi-model approach taken by CosmosDB.

Even if you decide on SQL Server, there are several different deployment and pricing models. For some applications, one of the analytics solutions might be a good fit, but how do you decide between Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Stream Analytics, or Azure Analysis Services.

Is Azure Data Factory a good fit for your ETL needs, and if so, will a pipeline built of standard activities meet your needs or will you need to create custom data flows?

This talk will help you to navigate the many options, so that you can quickly narrow down a small set of candidate technologies that you can then assess to make the right decisions.

About the presenter

Ian Griffiths

Ian has worked across an extraordinary breadth of computing - from embedded real-time systems and broadcast television to medical imaging and cloud-scale architectures. As Technical Fellow at endjin, he brings this deep cross-domain experience to bear on the hardest technical problems.

A 17-time Microsoft MVP in Developer Technologies, Ian is the author of O'Reilly's Programming C# 12.0 and one of the foremost authorities on the C# language and high-performance .NET development. He's a maintainer of Reactive Extensions for .NET, Reaqtor, and endjin's 50+ open source projects.

Ian has created Pluralsight courses on WPF fundamentals, WPF advanced topics, WPF v4, and the TPL, and has given over 20 talks at conferences worldwide. Technology brings him joy.