Azure Data Pipelines: Comparing Data Factory and Synapse Cost Profiles

The movement of data from one place to another is one of the oldest and often, most difficult information technology activities. Add a transformation element, the classic ETL task, and things can become complex. On Azure, there are primarily two, platform native ways to perform data movement. One method is to use Azure Data Factory, …

Azure AI and ML – Cost Factors and Decision Doctrine

In a previous post, I discussed Azure’s AI and ML offerings: their types and purpose and presented a simplified decision workflow. In this post, I’ll apply these concepts to a typical example, showing the importance of using an informed methodology – resistant to hype – to help you make good choices for your organization.  Understanding Azure Cognitive Services …

Azure Synapse Analytics: Do Your Homework!

Microsoft Azure Synapse Analytics combines data warehousing with analytics, machine learning and visualization. It brings together services which, in the past, were separate, under one umbrella. For example, Azure SQL pools (warehousing) and Apache Spark pools (analytics and machine learning) are bundled and made available as part of a unified service (or perhaps we could …

Tag Your Azure Assets for Business Insight

Yesterday, while writing about the difference between cloud cost optimization (observability) and cost cutting (accounting) on Twitter, I mentioned the importance of tagging as a key element of a spending observability strategy. Let's dive into this using a real-world example. Angry Chocolates International (ACI) [real company, actual name obscured] has a deep investment in Azure …