Roadmap for Azure SQL DW Hyperscale and Azure Synapse

Question

I'm trying to understand the roadmap for Azure SQLDWDB Hyperscale now that Microsoft has branded Azure SQL DW as Synapse.

1. Is Synapse using Hyperscale under the hood?

2. Whats the recommended Azure SQL DWDB to use with Synapse? General Purpose / Hyperscale / Business Critial? Can either one of them be selected?

3. Will Azure SQL DWDB Hyperscale, still be available, or it will go away?

Thanks in advance!

** Edited Question after reading answers: edited to change Azure SQL DW Hyperscale to Azure SQL DB Hyperscale **

Answer 1

1. Is Synapse using Hyperscale under the hood?

No, Hyperscale database is an Azure SQL Database.

What is a Hyperscale database?

A Hyperscale database is an Azure SQL database in the Hyperscale service tier that is backed by the Hyperscale scale-out storage technology. A Hyperscale database supports up to 100 TB of data and provides high throughput and performance, as well as rapid scaling to adapt to the workload requirements. Scaling is transparent to the application – connectivity, query processing, etc. work like any other Azure SQL database.

What resource types and purchasing models support Hyperscale?

The Hyperscale service tier is only available for single databases using the vCore-based purchasing model in Azure SQL Database.

Reference: Azure SQL Database Hyperscale FAQ

2. Whats the recommended Azure SQL DW to use with Synapse? General Purpose / Hyperscale / Business Critial? Can either one of them be selected?

Azure Synapse Analytics is an evolution of Azure SQL Data Warehouse into an analytics platform, which includes SQL pool as the data warehouse solution. This platform combines data exploration, ingestion, transformation, preparation, and a serving analytics layer.

What is Azure Synapse Analytics?

Azure Synapse is an integrated data platform for BI, AI, and continuous intelligence. It connects various analytics runtimes such as SQL and Spark through a single platform that provides a unified way to:

• Secure your analytics resources, including network, managing single sign-on access to pool, data, and development artifacts.

• Easily Monitor and quickly optimize, react, and debug events happening in your workspace activities at any layer.

• Manage your metadata across engines. Create a Spark table and it will be automatically available in your Azure Synapse databases.

• Interact with the data through a unified user experience. Synapse Studio brings Big Data Developers, Data Engineers, DBAs, Data Analysts, and Data Scientists on to the same platform.

What are the main components of Azure Synapse Analytics?

Azure Synapse has the following capabilities:

• Analytics capabilities are offered through SQL pool or SQL on-demand (preview) (Serverless).

• Apache Spark pool (preview) with full support for Scala, Python, SparkSQL, and C#

• Data Flow offering a code-free big data transformation experience

• Data Integration & Orchestration to integrate your data and operationalize all of your code development

• Studio to access all of these capabilities through a single Web UI

Reference: Azure Synapse Analytics (workspace preview) frequently asked questions

3. Will Azure SQL DW Hyperscale, still be available, or it will go away?

There is no Hyperscale concept in Azure Synapse (SQL DWH).

To understand more difference between Azure Synapse (SQL DW) and Azure Synapse Workspaces, kindly go through the Azure Synapse Analytics – Documentation .

Answer 2

1. No. Hyperscale is for Azure SQL and Managed Instance.

2. Synapse is built on Azure SQL Data Warehouse. You cannot use any of the options you mentioned for a data warehouse in Synapse.

3. There is no Azure SQL DW Hyperscale, sorry, it never existed.