What is Azure SQL Data Warehouse?

SQL Data Warehouse is a cloud-based Enterprise Data Warehouse (EDW) that uses Massively Parallel Processing (MPP) to quickly run complex queries across petabytes of data. Use SQL Data Warehouse as a key component of a big data solution. Import big data into SQL Data Warehouse with simple PolyBase T-SQL queries, and then use the power of MPP to run high-performance analytics. As you integrate and analyze, the data warehouse will become the single version of truth your business can count on for insights.

Key component of big data solution

SQL Data Warehouse is a key component of an end-to-end big data solution in the Cloud.

In a cloud data solution, data is ingested into big data stores from a variety of sources. Once in a big data store, Hadoop, Spark, and machine learning algorithms prepare and train the data. When the data is ready for complex analysis, SQL Data Warehouse uses PolyBase to query the big data stores. PolyBase uses standard T-SQL queries to bring the data into SQL Data Warehouse.

SQL Data Warehouse stores data into relational tables with columnar storage. This format significantly reduces the data storage costs, and improves query performance. Once data is stored in SQL Data Warehouse, you can run analytics at massive scale. Compared to traditional database systems, analysis queries finish in seconds instead of minutes, or hours instead of days.

The analysis results can go to worldwide reporting databases or applications. Business analysts can then gain insights to make well-informed business decisions.