At Build 2020 today, Microsoft unveiled an unprecedented, cloud-native implementation of hybrid transactional analytical processing (HTAP). Dubbed the Azure Synapse Link, the new capability allows for "immediate, in-the-moment insights on a business" without any additional burden on systems.
The efficiency with which analytical data can be made available relies on an optimized columnar structure link with Synapse Analytics, as opposed to complex ETL pipelines. Currently available in Cosmos DB, Synapse Link is planned to be made available to Azure Database for PostgreSQL and Azure Database for MySQL in the future as well. Further announcements today regarding Azure Database offerings can be read in detail here.
Other features introduced to Synapse Analytics in preview include "a unified experience with Synapse Studio, integrated SQL and Spark engines, serverless data lake exploration with Synapse SQL, shared metadata store and built-in Power BI authoring." More can be learned about these new capabilities here.
In further news on Azure analytics and Storage, the Azure NetApp Files service is noted to have achieved "four-9s" or 99.99% availability. The milestone was reached back in February, and it brings the service to a state where it "meets requirements for most mission-critical applications".
As far as Azure Database is concerned, Microsoft has also announced Azure SQL Edge in preview. Utilizing the SQL engine, the service is noted to help customers develop in a consistent area across a SQL database at the edge, or on-premise in the cloud. SQL Edge arrives with a small foot-print spanning less than 350mb of storage, and it can run on ARM- and x64-based devices regardless of connection availability.