Get Maximum Value From Data with Azure and Power BI
In today's working world, leading organisations are those that harness the power of their data, extracting valuable insights to support informed decision making at speed. Sean O'Malley, Storm's Principal Consultant for Data & AI discusses how Azure and Power BI can help your business realise its full potential and get more from your data.
As the amount of customer, market and business information collected by companies day to day continues to rise, they must not only ensure they have the correct infrastructure to store and protect this data but also that they can analyse and take actionable insights from their data. Meeting both of these modern-day needs of data management, Microsoft Azure and Power BI when combined make data management and analysis work harder for your business.
Power BI is a user-friendly solution that analyses and processes data from a wide variety of data sources often presenting it in a visual manner. This allows users to generate and share snapshots of what is happening in their business by helping users see past and present data patterns while predicting future trends. Typically, Power BI is used by business intelligence professionals or data analysts but with its ability to create personalised dashboards from any data set, all employees can benefit from diving into the information they have access to.
Microsoft Azure is a cloud computing service used for the creation and managing of applications while also storing and managing data. As part of the Microsoft eco-system, it is one of the most common data sources used with Power BI. There are many scenarios in which Azure and Power BI can be combined, in ways that can be as unique as your organisation. No matter how your Azure data is scaled, Azure and Power BI have the built-in integration and connectivity to bring your data to life. Allowing all professionals in your organisation to collaborate with ease and providing a single source of truth across the organisation. Below we explore how Power BI works with different elements of Microsoft Azure;
Azure Data Lake Storage
Process and analyse structured and unstructured data at scale when using Azure Data Lake Storage and Power BI. Furthermore, take advantage of Microsoft Dataverse to connect all your organisation's data sets regardless of where they reside.
Azure Synapse Analytics
Connect Power BI and Azure synapse analytics to develop your entire analytics infrastructure. Query data using on-demand resources to run analysis within your data warehouse. Take advantage of the analytics services to prep, manage and serve data for use in machine learning and AI.
Azure Databricks
Harness the open-source technology of Azure Databricks and combine it with Power BI to analyse large quantities of data quickly. These can be connected using the built-in Apache Spark connector allowing you to unlock insights across all your data and access machine learning and AI capabilities.
Azure Cognitive Services
Analyse data sets using AI-powered features built into Power BI while connecting to even more on Azure. Manage AI sentiment analysis, language detection, key phrase extraction and image tagging all in Power BI. Further, enhance your data by applying the Azure Cognitive Services tool kit to apply custom algorithms.
Azure Machine Learning services
Optimise the built-in machine learning abilities in Power BI to visualise advanced insight. Empower business analysts and leaders to make use of machine learning models built by data scientists directly in Power BI. Easily click and add insights from models in Azure Machine learning services to Power BI.
Power BI and the Azure ecosystem work together by bringing Power BI's visualisation and reporting capabilities into Azure apps for your company and for apps made for customers. Further, Power BI analyses all types of data, even your full data estate when integrated with Azure. This Microsoft pairing has the ability to help professionals get the most from their data in a user-friendly and quick way ensuring data can contribute to decision making and forecasting needs where required.
To learn more about Microsoft Azure, check out our case study with Tropical Medical Bureau, or if you would like to discover what Azure and Power BI can do for your business speak to a solution expert.