Organizations are coping with unprecedented quantities of information, and whereas this information has the potential to assist drive extra knowledgeable enterprise selections and facilitate AI initiatives, information silos can come up and forestall firms from realizing the true potential of their information.
“Integrating various information sources requires not solely bridging variations in information fashions and protocols but in addition imposing constant safety controls and with out these, organizations danger exposing delicate info and fragmenting their information panorama,” stated Kumar Vikesh, senior technical product supervisor on the information connectivity firm Progress.
One answer to this problem is Microsoft Material, a platform that enables information from a number of completely different sources to be unified in a single information lake the place it may be related to completely different analytics and reporting instruments, like Energy BI.
Underneath the hood, these connections are made potential by the Synapse Endpoint, a connection interface for querying information with SQL in OneLake, Material’s unified information lake. “This makes it straightforward for builders, analysts, and information engineers to work together with structured and semi-structured information without having to be taught new question languages or change platforms,” stated Vikesh.
To make the Material ecosystem much more accessible, Progress gives a DataDirect Connector that enables organizations to attach purposes to the Synapse Endpoint, providing numerous distinct advantages over Microsoft’s native tooling.
DataDirect is the corporate’s instrument for connecting up completely different information sources. “It gives high-performance connectors and integration instruments designed for safe, dependable, and scalable entry to information throughout cloud, on-premises, and hybrid environments,” Vikesh stated.
Its advantages over Microsoft’s native tooling embrace multi-platform assist (Linux, AIX, and Solaris vs. Home windows solely), enterprise-grade safety, cloud-to-cloud and hybrid connectivity, assist for OData v4, and customized enhancements that enhance usability and supply extra management over uncovered information.
The DataDirect Connectors additionally assist facilitate many alternative analytics use circumstances. This consists of connecting to BI and reporting and ETL instruments to information, permitting these integration purposes to ingest, remodel, and sync information between Material and different downstream methods like Snowflake, Redshift, or on-prem databases. The DataDirect Connector additionally permits light-weight net and cell apps to simply hook up with Material utilizing SQL with the ODBC or JDBC requirements.
Along with these conventional information analytics use circumstances, it’s also designed to be AI-ready. In accordance with Vikesh, the OneLake structure centralizes information in order that AI fashions can entry various datasets, and makes it simpler for information scientists to organize coaching information utilizing acquainted instruments.
“Collectively, Material and DataDirect empower organizations to unlock the complete potential of their information for AI, with out compromising on efficiency, safety, or flexibility,” stated Vikesh.
Past the Microsoft Material DataDirect Connector, Progress gives numerous different merchandise throughout the DataDirect umbrella, together with its Hybrid Information Pipeline for connecting SaaS purposes to on-premise information, an SDK for creating autonomous REST connectors, a toolkit for constructing drivers that expose proprietary information sources, and ready-to-use ODBC, JDBC, and OData Connectors.