Data Mozart Journal #4
Check what's latest in the wonderful world of data!
2023/12/15
Dear Data Friend,
Hi and welcome to the #4 edition of the "Data Mozart Journal"! Thank you for subscribing to get the latest data digest straight into your inbox.
If you have any suggestions/ideas on how to improve the "Data Mozart Journal", feel free to get in touch via: nikola@data-mozart.com
Enjoy reading, happy holidays and see you on January 6th!
Best,
Nikola
3 reasons to use views instead of tables in Power BI!
When using a relational database as the data source for Power BI solutions, most report creators choose to take an easier path - import the data directly from tables, without even thinking or being aware of database views! In this article, we demystify views and explain why they should be your preferred choice when importing data from the SQL database.
Implementing Incremental Refresh in Power BI
Tired of a slow and inefficient data refresh process? Learn how to leverage the Incremental refresh feature to speed up and optimize the data refresh!
DP-600 Fabric Analytics Engineer Certification - Live Q&A
Calling all prospective DP-600 MS Fabric Analytics Engineers📢📢📢
Next month, I'll be hosting a live webinar about the brand-new exam: Implementing Analytics Solutions Using Microsoft Fabric. It's absolutely FREE to join, since it's going to be live-streamed on my YouTube channel on January 12th at 6 PM CET:
https://youtube.com/live/-DFYO3PE9qE?
However, I encourage you to register for FREE on the Data Mozart learning platform, because there will be a raffle with prizes for registered participants: I'll randomly choose 10 individuals who will get FREE full early access to my brand new course which will cover all DP-600 certificate topics!
Simply enroll in the Data Mozart learning platform (it's absolutely free, no credit card needed):
https://learn.data-mozart.com/
And, you are in for the potential win!
One last thing: there is a form where you can submit your questions in advance. The best question also wins!
https://forms.office.com/e/G3qzU2HS7t
Watch my initial thoughts on the new exam on YouTube…
Community Corner
Curated content created by the data community
Query folding is one of my favorite topics! Therefore, it’s always an entertaining reading when a true expert, such as Chris Webb, writes about this topic
Andy Cutler did a great overview and comparison between Fabric OneLake and ADLS Gen2 Storage Accounts. Highly recommended reading!
If you follow my newsletter carefully, you know that I’m a big fan of the new Semantic Link feature in Microsoft Fabric. Sandeep Pawar explains how we can leverage this feature to refresh individual tables and partitions
Heh, another one on Semantic Link! This time, legend Phil Seamark shows how to visualize the Power BI refresh process by using Semantic Link. After Phil did it a while ago with SQL Server Profiler, we now have another option to identify bottlenecks in the data refresh process
Patrick Pichler makes a very interesting comparison between the Data Warehouse and Data Lakehouse from the workload perspective. It’s one of the rare articles focusing on something other than developers’ skillset and a pure set of features available in Warehouse vs Lakehouse
Microsoft Hall
Latest updates from the official Microsoft Blog
Lakehouse vs Warehouse - this is already one of the “evergreen” topics in the Microsoft Fabric realm. Therefore, this article may give you a good starting point in understanding the pros and cons of each
One of the Warehouse improvements is related to the brand-new feature: restore-in-place, which enables you to restore the data to a previously reliable state
We also got a brand-new M function: DeltaLake.Table for reading the data directly from Delta tables
The last Power BI update of the year was also announced. This time, no mouth-watering features like in the previous edition, but still a few things to look for. Personally, my top features from this month are enhancements to Azure Map visual, and improvements to Paginated reports (ability to search and sort)