Book Image

Data Modeling for Azure Data Services

By : Peter ter Braake
Book Image

Data Modeling for Azure Data Services

By: Peter ter Braake

Overview of this book

Data is at the heart of all applications and forms the foundation of modern data-driven businesses. With the multitude of data-related use cases and the availability of different data services, choosing the right service and implementing the right design becomes paramount to successful implementation. Data Modeling for Azure Data Services starts with an introduction to databases, entity analysis, and normalizing data. The book then shows you how to design a NoSQL database for optimal performance and scalability and covers how to provision and implement Azure SQL DB, Azure Cosmos DB, and Azure Synapse SQL Pool. As you progress through the chapters, you'll learn about data analytics, Azure Data Lake, and Azure SQL Data Warehouse and explore dimensional modeling, data vault modeling, along with designing and implementing a Data Lake using Azure Storage. You'll also learn how to implement ETL with Azure Data Factory. By the end of this book, you'll have a solid understanding of which Azure data services are the best fit for your model and how to implement the best design for your solution.
Table of Contents (16 chapters)
1
Section 1 – Operational/OLTP Databases
8
Section 2 – Analytics with a Data Lake and Data Warehouse
13
Section 3 – ETL with Azure Data Factory

Background to dimensional modeling

When relational databases were introduced in the early 80s, businesses were promised that they would never lack information again. Slogans such as "information at your fingertips" and "always make decisions based on facts, not on gut feeling" were used to sell relational databases. These slogans are still used today. This time, they are used to sell business intelligence.

Gartner defines business intelligence as follows (www.gartner.com/it-glossary/business-intelligence-bi):

Analytics and business intelligence (ABI) is an umbrella term that includes the applications, infrastructure and tools, and best practices that enable access to, and analysis of, information to improve and optimize decisions and performance.

A more pragmatic formulation could be: provide the right people with the right information at the right time in the right format.

Using SQL, this promise seemed within reach. Using SQL, you can formulate any...