Global Analytics with Azure Cosmos Db and Synapse Analytics - SQL On The Edge Episode 21
A few months ago, Microsoft revealed that they were looking into adding a capability of querying Cosmos Db data through Spark and this immediately got me thinking into the new scenarios this would enable. The most ambitious is the capability of doing Global Analytics, being able to do analytical queries over your live operational data coming from anywhere on the planet. All without having to handle one piece of infrastructure yourself. The crazy thing is that this scenario is not only possible now (in public preview) but it has been dramatically simplified by Microsoft with the integration of Cosmos Db with Synapse Analytics! Let's talk a bit about Synapse first. What started as Azure SQL Data Warehouse, it has now evolved into an all-encompassing analytics development service called Synapse Analytics. Microsoft took the power of the MPP database engine of SQL Data Warehouse and added more powerful capabilities like on-demand SQL querying, full Spark integration, Data Lake Store Gen2 tight support as well as an integrated authoring experience. This will be the analytical piece of the Global Analytics solution. The next piece of the Global Analytics solution is Cosmos Db. In case you are not familiar, Cosmos Db is Azure's NoSQL Database as a Service, born in the cloud and designed to take advantage of the flexibility, elasticity, and global reach of cloud computing. One of the main differentiating features of Cosmos Db is the built-in replication capabilities that were part of the core design of the product. Cosmos Db not only makes it easy to replicate data across the globe but offers multi-master capabilities on sites separated by thousands of kilometers. Coupled with several options for dealing with conflicts as well as consistency guarantees, it is the easiest to use, most reliable, and fastest database system that can create a truly global database. This is the operational data piece and the component that truly enabled the "global" aspect of the solution.