With the pressure for modern business models to adapt to the ever-changing landscape of real-time model learning and automated intelligence, it’s imperative that you have the systems and data capabilities to get you there. That’s why Microsoft have launched their Intelligent Data Platform, which will enable users to unlock fast and predictive insights, enjoy further intelligence within their applications and safely manage their data.

To ensure Microsoft is constantly evolving to offer a consistent data ecosystem to its users, Microsoft Intelligent Data platform has recently shared some exciting announcements that we’re excited for, and we want you to know about!

The All-New Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform

On May 24^th, Microsoft released the new Microsoft Intelligent Data Platform. This cloud platform fully integrates databases, analytics and governance, giving organisations the ability to spend more time working on their bigger business strategy rather than managing their own data systems.

Azure Synapse Link for SQL

The feature Azure Synapse Link for SQL removes data movement barriers, ensuring an effortless data channel to Azure Synapse Analytics, and enables near-real-time analytics for SQL Server 2022 and Azure SQL Database. Once Azure Synapse Link transfers data to Azure Synapse Analytics, data can be used for advanced analytics without hindering on transactional workloads. This new update has now rolled out for over 10 million Azure SQL customers around the world.

SQL Server 2022

According to Microsoft, SQL Server 2022 is their most Azure-enabled release to date, with improved performance, security and availability.

“By connecting SQL server to Azure through seamless disaster recovery to Azure SQL Managed Instance, SQL Server 2022 provides true resilience. The latest Azure Arc innovation is here with the Business Critical tier of Azure Arc-enabled SQL Managed Instance now generally available—helping customers run the most demanding mission-critical workloads in hybrid and multicloud environments”.

Azure

Plus, there’s no need for another decentralised blockchain technology – and the additional costs or complexities that can often come with it –  when you can make the most of the ledger feature within the Azure SQL Database.

Azure Cosmos DB

Enjoy an enhanced 30-day trial of the Azure Cosmos DB, which boasts new burst capacity and elasticity features which ensure applications deliver high performance during busy times while still remaining budget-friendly. The Azure Database for MySQL Flexible Server Memory-Optimized service tier is now the improved “Business Critical” tier for high performance transactional or analytical applications with a 1.5x performance improvement over Single Server with faster failover time to standby.

Microsoft Graph Data Connect

Say hello to new integrations and improved analytics with Azure Synapse, which now has more meaningful integrations that enable you to get the most value out of your Microsoft 365 data. With Microsoft Graph Data Connect, customers can safely export their data in Microsoft Azure and receive valuable business insights from their employee and customer collaboration data.

Datamart in Power BI

Datamart in Power BI is a new Power BI premium self-service functionality that allows users to uncover actionable insights through their own data sets. Using this new capability, developers and business analysts can build a centrally governed datamart for workloads up to half a terabyte. This equals more time for insights, and less demands on your busy IT team.

Data Privacy

While data has shifted to hybrid and multicloud environments, rest assured privacy is of utmost priority. Dynamic Lineage for Azure SQL Databases in Microsoft Purview is currently in the preview phase to further enrich the Microsoft Purview Data Map with details from actual runs of SQL stored procedures in Azure SQL Databases for customers to oversee their data. We can look forward to Microsoft Purview Data Estate Insights within the next few months.

Machine Learning

AI capabilities are going to be key for future developments within Microsoft platforms, and Azure Machine Learning now offers a Responsible AI dashboard. Whilst still in preview, the dashboard offers data explorer, model interpretability, error analysis, counterfactual, and causal inference analysis in a single view. The new scorecard functionality summarizes model performance and insights so that all stakeholders in your business can participate in compliance reviews.

With these new updates in tow, there are so many more opportunities for your business to continue to evolve and expand with your client and customer needs. If you’d like to discuss any of these in more detail or to see how your business may benefit from Microsoft’s Data Platform, please feel free to visit our ‘Contact Us’ page and one of our friendly team members would be happy to assist.