Microsoft: Tableau and Azure SQL DB, a match made in the cloud

In recent years, Microsoft SQL and Tableau Engineering teams have been working closely together to provide a superior user experience with the two platforms. Today we are sharing some advice on how to optimize the connectivity between Azure SQL DB and Tableau.

Our teams previously teamed up for the SQL Server 2016 launch and for the Azure SQL Data Warehouse launch. Today, this partnership relies on the fact that SQL Server is Tableau’s most common data source, in combined cloud and on-premises usage as detailed in the recent Tableau Cloud Data Brief.

Our engineering benchmarks, and several global customer engagements, lead us to have a closer look at optimal connectivity and how to leverage the specificities of both platforms.

Without further ado, here are the main learnings.

Out-of-the-box experience works well

We observed that most customers fared well by simply replicating their on-premises approach. Azure SQL DB uses the same drivers as SQL Server 2016, which inherently reduces complexity. With Tableau Desktop UI there is a single SQL Server connector for Azure SQL DB, Azure SQL Data Warehouse, or SQL Server 2016, running on premises or in a public cloud like Azure.

Tableau Live Querying provides the best performance Network bandwidth permitting, the Live Query mode of Tableau allows the heavy lifting to occur in Azure SQL DB, while also providing more up to date information to Tableau users, as opposed to extract based connectivity. This implies doing some sizing and performance testing with different Azure SQL DB SKUs. In our experience, Azure SQL DB latency and throughput can meet the most stringent Tableau requirements.

Read the entire article here, Tableau and Azure SQL DB, a match made in the cloud | Blog

via the fine folks at Microsoft.