Azure Synapse Analytics (formerly SQL SW) vs Azure Synapse Analytics (workspaces preview)

2
votes

What are the differences between the following Azure Services?

  • Azure Synapse Analytics (formerly SQL DW)
  • Azure Synapse Analytics (private link hubs preview)
  • Azure Synapse Analytics (workspaces preview)

Are these three different products? Or are the two preview services just new features that will eventually be added into Azure Synapse Analytics?

The documentation is a little confusing. This FAQ (https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/synapse-analytics/overview-what-is) for the workspaces preview, for example, just looks like a FAQ for the overall Azure Synapse Analytics service.

1
sqlazuredata-warehouseazure-sql-data-warehouseazure-synapse

1 Answers

2
votes

It would be useful to link to a document mentioning these terms so I could have some context. Without context, this is my understanding of these:

Azure Synapse Analytics (formerly SQL DW)

This is just the MPP relational platform piece of "Azure Synapse Analytics"

You can connect to it using Azure Data Studio, SQL Server Management Studio, or Synapse Workspace and run SQL queries on it. It's a relational database that stores data across 60 shared-nothing nodes

Azure Synapse Analytics (private link hubs preview)

private link is a new feature across many Azure resources (data lake etc.) that allows you to confine connectivity to internal Azure VNets, meaning that you can use the resource without requiring public access. This feature is not specific to Synapse, it's a network connectivity feature being rolled across multiple azure components

Azure Synapse Analytics (workspaces preview)

This is the actual front end that has tabs for various analytics components. One component is the MPP platform that used to be called SQL DW. Another component is MS spark engine. Other components are Power BI and Data Factory.

Do you have a use case or an objective here?