Access Azure Table Storage in SQL Server - azure-sql-database

I'm trying to access Azure Table Storage in a Gen 2 data lake from Azure SQL Server, but I can't find any documentation. Loads on how to get to csv's in blob storage, but nothing on Azure tables.
Any ideas?
John

Your requirement isn't feasible.
Azure Table storage is a service that stores non-relational
structured data (also known as structured NoSQL data) in the cloud,
providing a key/attribute store with a schemaless design.
Since, Table storage can't be queried using SQL, therefore there is no sense to access it using any SQL Server.
I recommend you to first go through Table storage concepts
before knowing how to query it.
Once getting the Table Storage structure, you can query the tables either through REST API or Cosmos DB Table API based on your application. Refer Querying tables and entities.
You can also follow this complete tutorial Quickstart: Build a Table API app with .NET SDK and Azure Cosmos DB to create basic application using Table Storage for learning purpose.

Related

Oracle Cloud to Azure Cloud storage

We have a requirement to move data from oracle Cloud storage to Azure Cloud storage.
The requirement is basically to move data from an Oracle ADW database (hosted on Oracle cloud) to Snowflake database (hosted on Azure).
Since the data volume in tables is huge (some with 60mil+ records) we do not wish to use any ETL tool and instead want to setup a pipeline as below.
Oracle ADW database -> Store data in Oracle storage --> Move data to Azure Cloud storage -> Load into Snowflake using snowpipe or similar snowflake utilities.
How should I go about this implementation?
Also share your views on whether we can use Oracle fastconnect and Azure ExpressRoute to directly pull data from Oracle Cloud onto snowflake (or into Azure storage)
I am looking for the same thing with the simplest method from Oracle (on prem but could be cloud), into Snowflake. Looks like data must be exporeted or dropped to external tables, shifted to Azure Blob storage (like AWS S3), then pushed into Snowflake using COPY INTO - basically copying on disk external tables. This is what Snowpipe does:
"Snowpipe copies the files into a queue, from which they are loaded into the target table in a continuous, serverless fashion based on parameters defined in a specified pipe object. The following table indicates the cloud storage service support for automated Snowpipe from Snowflake accounts hosted on each cloud platform:"
It's been a while since I have worked with this. The other option is GoldenGate, which was not expensive the last time I looked into it:
https://www.snowflake.com/blog/continuous-data-replication-into-snowflake-with-oracle-goldengate/
Easy, simple, fast. Anyone have any better ideas would be appreciated.

Access Azure Data Lake Analytics Tables from SQL Server Polybase

I need to export a multi terabyte dataset processed via Azure Data Lake Analytics(ADLA) onto a SQL Server database.
Based on my research so far, I know that I can write the result of (ADLA) output to a Data Lake store or WASB using built-in outputters, and then read the output data from SQL server using Polybase.
However, creating the result of ADLA processing as an ADLA table seems pretty enticing to us. It is a clean solution (no files to manage), multiple readers, built-in partitioning, distribution keys and the potential for allowing other processes to access the tables.
If we use ADLA tables, can I access ADLA tables via SQL Polybase? If not, is there any way to access the files underlying the ADLA tables directly from Polybase?
I know that I can probably do this using ADF, but at this point I want to avoid ADF to the extent possible - to minimize costs, and to keep the process simple.
Unfortunately, Polybase support for ADLA Tables is still on the roadmap and not yet available. Please file a feature request through the SQL Data Warehouse User voice page.
The suggested work-around is to produce the information as Csv in ADLA and then create the partitioned and distributed table in SQL DW and use Polybase to read the data and fill the SQL DW managed table.

U SQL: direct output to SQL DB

Is there a way to output U-SQL results directly to a SQL DB such as Azure SQL DB? Couldn't find much about that.
Thanks!
U-SQL only currently outputs to files or internal tables (ie tables within ADLA databases), but you have a couple of options. Azure SQL Database has recently gained the ability to load files from Azure Blob Storage using either BULK INSERT or OPENROWSET, so you could try that. This article shows the syntax and gives a reminder that:
Azure Blob storage containers with public blobs or public containers
access permissions are not currently supported.
wasb://<BlobContainerName>#<StorageAccountName>.blob.core.windows.net/yourFolder/yourFile.txt
BULK INSERT and OPENROWSET with Azure Blob Storage is shown here:
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/sqlserverstorageengine/2017/02/23/loading-files-from-azure-blob-storage-into-azure-sql-database/
You could also use Azure Data Factory (ADF). Its Copy Activity could load the data from Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) to an Azure SQL Database in two steps:
execute U-SQL script which creates output files in ADLS (internal tables are not currently supported as a source in ADF)
move the data from ADLS to Azure SQL Database
As a final option, if your data is likely to get into larger volumes (ie Terabytes (TB) then you could use Azure SQL Data Warehouse which supports Polybase. Polybase now supports both Azure Blob Storage and ADLS as a source.
Perhaps if you can tell us a bit more about your process we can refine which of these options is most suitable for you.

Is it possible to export data from MS Azure SQL directly Into the Azure Table Storage?

Is there any direct way within the Azure MSSQL ecosystem to export SQL returned data set into the Azure table storage?
Something like BCP but with the Table Storage connection string on the -Output end?
There is a service named Azure Data Factory which can directly copy data from Azure SQL Database to Azure Table Storage, even between other supported data stores, please see the section Supported data stores of the article "Data movement and the Copy Activity: migrating data to the cloud and between cloud stores" to know, but it is for Web, not like BCP command tool.
You can refer to the tutorial Build your first Azure data factory using Azure Portal/Data Factory Editor to know how to use it.
And as references, you can refer to the articles Move data to and from Azure SQL Database using Azure Data Factory & Move data to and from Azure Table using Azure Data Factory to know how it works.

Real-time data synchronization from Azure database to Azure SQL Data Warehouse?

I've done a fair bit of reading and it seems like there are a couple of off-the-shelf products that replicate/sync data from on-premise database to Azure SQL Data Warehouse but I've found nothing that syncs using an Azure database as the source. The Azure Data Factory holds some promise however it looks more suited to one off loads.
Anyone know of a way? (SSIS package not really an option as I want the transfer to occur wholly inside the cloud)
Azure Data Factory can run continuous loads from SQL Database to SQL Data Warehouse. You'll want to look into the frequency and interval parameters for the pipeline
The documentation is here https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/documentation/articles/data-factory-create-datasets/.