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Data project: what tools to meet the needs of your company?

Managing your business also means exploiting internal and external data, sorting it, analyzing it and deducing reliable indicators. These indicators make it possible to check the reliability of its global strategy and to set up an efficient dashboard. Four main tools are used in data projects with different uses aimed at exploring and highlighting the connections between data.

Azure SQL: for a data project with a low volume of data

Azure SQL is a secure and intelligent database storage and maintenance solution that leverages SQL Server technology and offers a wide range of features and deployment. Azure SQL includes various products supported by SQL Server, the database engine on Microsoft’s cloud application platform :

  • Azure SQL Database: A  relational database as a service (DBaaS), built for the cloud, Azure SQL Database delivers innovative, managed, intelligent cloud applications that integrate serverless compute capabilities.
  • Azure SQL Managed Instance: This PaaS (platform as a service) allows you to give a new dimension to your SQL Server applications by making them 100% compatible with the cloud. Intelligent, scalable, and managed, this database service provides functionality found in a SQL Server instance such as SQL Agent.
  • SQL Server on Azure Virtual Machines: Virtual porting of SQL Server workloads is simplified by this Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) by allowing you to use full versions of SQL Server in the cloud without having to manage on-premises hardware, and migrate your platforms to lift and shift.

Reusing applications already acquired by your teams and migrating them to the cloud increases your capabilities and capabilities.

Azure Synapse: for a high-volume data project or to have a single data platform

Azure Synapse ensures that data is fully engaged in times of change, making it easier to explore and analyze. Integrated with the Microsoft Azure platform, Synapse brings together the best in SQL technologies used in enterprise data warehousing, Spark technologies used for big data, and pipelines for data integration and ETL/ELT.

At the same time, business intelligence, leveraging tools such as Power BI, promotes better visualization and provides interactive features that are easy for end users to set up and operate. Azure Synapse, combined with Power BI, represents a single management workspace that brings together security measures and optimal governance.

In addition, the creation of key performance indicators for decision-making and organisational performance management, as well as KPIs and statistics, helps to accurately determine ROI (return on investment).

Power BI: for reporting and data restitution

Stemming from Business Intelligence (BI), Power BI is a management tool, and more specifically for decision-making. Dedicated to reporting and data unification, Power BI provides the necessary elements for the development of dashboards and reports combining knowledge integration (insights) and immersion through interactive programs. This tool guarantees a good overview in order to better understand a situation and make an informed choice, knowing that important data is highlighted in a dashboard. 

Power BI is simple to use and 100% customizable to be handled by any department of the company: the segmentation of raw data is entirely carried out by BI, an essential tool for collaboration and information sharing.

Azure Purview: for optimal data governance

With the proliferation of data sources, the flow of information is becoming increasingly difficult to manage. Azure purview is the ideal tool to follow market developments and get a visualization of the whole. This comprehensive data management and governance service provides control over all data, regardless of where it comes from: in SQL Server, Oracle, or another on-premises application, in different clouds such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) S3, or in SaaS (Salesforce) applications. Relationships between this data are automatically established and sensitive data is classified. The user can then follow the progress of each of them and locate its location, but also add other governance features. The tool also makes it possible to identify, if desired, users responsible for the data.

Integrated with Azure Synapse Analytics, Azure Purview enables the use of resources in Azure Synapse Studio. More than 200 predefined and custom classifiers are used and reflect your privacy labels when Azure Purview is integrated with Microsoft Information Protection.

Data tools ensure expert performance monitoring through the implementation of quality indicators. Customer knowledge makes it possible to validate a project and determine suitable solutions. In this sense, the data project is conducted with caution by relying on an abysmal amount of classified and objectified data.