Anaconda provides access to the foundational open-source Python and R packages used in modern AI, data science, and machine learning. These enterprise-grade solutions enable corporate, research, and academic institutions around the world to harness open-source for competitive advantage and research. Anaconda also provides enterprise-grade security to open-source software through the Premium Repository.
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Azure Synapse Analytics
Score 7.6 out of 10
N/A
Azure Synapse Analytics is described as the former Azure SQL Data Warehouse, evolved, and as a limitless analytics service that brings together enterprise data warehousing and Big Data analytics. It gives users the freedom to query data using either serverless or provisioned resources, at scale. Azure Synapse brings these two worlds together with a unified experience to ingest, prepare, manage, and serve data for immediate BI and machine learning needs.
As a Data Analyst, it is my job to analyze large datasets using complex mathematical models. Anaconda provides a one-stop destination with tools like PyCharm, Jupyter, Spyder, and RStudio. One case where it is well suited is for someone who has just started his/her career in this field. The ability to install Anaconda requires zero to little skills and its UI is a lot easier for a beginner to try. On the other hand, for a professional, its ability to handle large data sets could be improved. From my experience, it has happened a lot that the system would crash with big files.
It's well suited for large, fastly growing, and frequently changing data warehouses (e.g., in startups). It's also suited for companies that want a single, relatively easy-to-use, centralized cloud service for all their data needs. Larger, more structured organizations could still benefit from this service by using Synapse Dedicated SQL Pools, knowing that costs will be much higher than other solutions. I think this product is not suited for smaller, simpler workloads (where an Azure SQL Database and a Data Factory could be enough) or very large scenarios, where it may be better to build custom infrastructure.
Although I have generally had positive experiences with Anaconda, I have had trouble installing specific python libraries. I tried to remedy the solution by updating other packages, but in the end, things got really messed up, and I ended up having to uninstall and reinstall a total of about 4 times over the past 2 years.
If you have the free version of Anaconda, there is not much support. Googling questions and error messages are helpful, but there were times when I wished I would have been able to ask technical support to help me troubleshoot issues.
There were a few times when I tried to install tensorflow and tensorboard via Anaconda on a PC, but I could not get them to install properly. Anaconda allows you to create 'environments' , which allow you to install specific versions of python and associated libraries. You can keep your environments separate so they do not conflict with one another. Anyway, I ended up having to create several 'conda envrionments' just so I could use tensforflow/tensorboard and a few other utilities to avoid errors. This was somewhat annoying, because every time I wanted to run a specific model, I'd have to open up the specific conda environment with the appropriate python libraries.
It takes some time to setup a proper SQL Datawarehouse architecture. Without proper SSIS/automation scripts, this can be a very daunting task.
It takes a lot of foresight when designing a Data Warehouse. If not properly designed, it can be very troublesome to use and/or modify later on.
It takes a lot of effort to maintain. Businesses are continually changing. With that, a full time staff member or more will be required to maintain the SQL Data Warehouse.
It's really good at data processing, but needs to grow more in publishing in a way that a non-programmer can interact with. It also introduces confusion for programmers that are familiar with normal Python processes which are slightly different in Anaconda such as virtualenvs.
The data warehouse portion is very much like old style on-prem SQL server, so most SQL skills one has mastered carry over easily. Azure Data Factory has an easy drag and drop system which allows quick building of pipelines with minimal coding. The Spark portion is the only really complex portion, but if there's an in-house python expert, then the Spark portion is also quiet useable.
Anaconda provides fast support, and a large number of users moderate its online community. This enables any questions you may have to be answered in a timely fashion, regardless of the topic. The fact that it is based in a Python environment only adds to the size of the online community.
Microsoft does its best to support Synapse. More and more articles are being added to the documentation, providing more useful information on best utilizing its features. The examples provided work well for basic knowledge, but more complex examples should be added to further assist in discovering the vast abilities that the system has.
ANACONDA VS Alteryx Analytics: Even though I find Alteryx to be an excellent tool for managing extremely massive data, Anaconda is much better and easy for analytics. Anaconda VS. MicroStrategy Analytics: Compared with Anaconda, MicroStrategy Analytics is very difficult to use and counter-intuitive Anaconda VS. Power BI For Office 365: One of the main advantages of BI for Office 364 is its capacity to data connectivity. However, it's very hard to edit data connections, once BI for Office is deployed in other platforms
When client is already having or using Azure then it’s wise to go with Synapse rather than using Snowflake. We got a lot of help from Microsoft consultants and Microsoft partners while implementing our EDW via Synapse and support is easily available via Microsoft resources and blogs. I don’t see that with Snowflake
