What is Azure Synapse Analytics
The technological research and consulting firm Gartner defines four common types of analytical technique that organizations commonly use:
Descriptive analytics, which answers the question “What is happening in my business?”. The data to answer this question is typically answered through the creation of a data warehouse in which historical data is persisted in relational tables for multidimensional modeling and reporting.
Diagnostic analytics, which deals with answering the question “Why is it happening?”. This may involve exploring information that already exists in a data warehouse, but typically involves a wider search of your data estate to find more data to support this type of analysis.
Predictive analytics, which enables you to answer the question “What is likely to happen in the future based on previous trends and patterns?”
Prescriptive analytics, which enables autonomous decision making based on real-time or near real-time analysis of data, using predictive analytics.
Azure Synapse Analytics provides a cloud platform for all of these analytical workloads through support for multiple data storage, processing, and analysis technologies in a single, integrated solution. The integrated design of Azure Synapse Analytics enables organizations to leverage investments and skills in multiple commonly used data technologies, including SQL, Apache Spark, and others; while providing a centrally managed service and a single, consistent user interface.