Organizations are coping with unprecedented quantities of knowledge, and whereas this information has the potential to assist drive extra knowledgeable enterprise choices and facilitate AI initiatives, information silos can come up and stop corporations from realizing the true potential of their information.
“Integrating numerous information sources requires not solely bridging variations in information fashions and protocols but additionally implementing constant safety controls and with out these, organizations threat exposing delicate info and fragmenting their information panorama,” stated Kumar Vikesh, senior technical product supervisor on the information connectivity firm Progress.
One resolution to this problem is Microsoft Cloth, a platform that enables information from a number of totally different sources to be unified in a single information lake the place it may be related to totally different analytics and reporting instruments, like Energy BI.
Underneath the hood, these connections are made doable by the Synapse Endpoint, a connection interface for querying information with SQL in OneLake, Cloth’s unified information lake. “This makes it straightforward for builders, analysts, and information engineers to work together with structured and semi-structured information with no need to study new question languages or swap platforms,” stated Vikesh.
To make the Cloth ecosystem much more accessible, Progress gives a DataDirect Connector that enables organizations to attach purposes to the Synapse Endpoint, providing a lot of distinct advantages over Microsoft’s native tooling.
DataDirect is the corporate’s instrument for connecting up totally 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 help (Linux, AIX, and Solaris vs. Home windows solely), enterprise-grade safety, cloud-to-cloud and hybrid connectivity, help 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 contains connecting to BI and reporting and ETL instruments to information, permitting these integration purposes to ingest, remodel, and sync information between Cloth and different downstream techniques like Snowflake, Redshift, or on-prem databases. The DataDirect Connector additionally permits light-weight internet and cellular apps to simply hook up with Cloth 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 numerous datasets, and makes it simpler for information scientists to arrange coaching information utilizing acquainted instruments.
“Collectively, Cloth 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 Cloth DataDirect Connector, Progress gives a lot of 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.
