Azure SQL Data Warehouse is a fast, flexible and secure analytics platform for enterprises of all sizes. Today we are announcing the preview availability of workload importance on the Gen2 platform to help customers manage resources more efficiently. Workload importance gives data engineers the ability to use importance to classify requests. Requests with higher importance are guaranteed quicker access to resources which helps meet SLAs.
“More with less” is often the motto when it comes to operating data warehousing solutions. The ability to easily scale up compute resources gives data engineers tremendous flexibility. However, when there is budget pressure and scaling down is required, problems can arise. Workload importance allows high business value work to meet SLAs in a shared environment with fewer resources.
An example of workload importance is shown below. The CEO’s request was submitted last and classified with high importance. Because the CEO’s request has high importance, it is granted access to resources before the Analyst requests allowing it to complete sooner.
Get started now classifying requests with importance
Classifying requests is done with the new CREATE WORKLOAD CLASSIFIER syntax. Below is an example that maps the login for the ExecutiveReports role to ABOVE_NORMAL importance and the AdhocUsers role to BELOW_NORMAL importance. With this configuration, members of the ExecutiveReports role have their queries complete sooner because they get access to resources before members of the AdhocUsers role.
CREATE WORKLOAD CLASSIFIER ExecReportsClassifier
WITH (WORKLOAD_GROUP = 'mediumrc'
,MEMBERNAME = 'ExecutiveReports'
,IMPORTANCE = above_normal);
CREATE WORKLOAD CLASSIFIER AdhocClassifier
WITH (WORKLOAD_GROUP = 'smallrc'
,MEMBERNAME = 'AdhocUsers'
,IMPORTANCE = below_normal);
For more information on workload importance refer to the Classification and Importance overview topics in the documentation. Check out the CREATE WORKLOAD CLASSIFIER doc as well.
See workload importance in action in the below videos:
Next Steps
- To get started today, create an Azure SQL Data Warehouse.
- For feature requests, please vote on our UserVoice.
- To stay up-to-date on the latest Azure SQL Data Warehouse news and features, follow us on Twitter @AzureSQLDW.
