What is the purpose of the P_** Stored procedures auto-created by Azure Synapse?

Question

What is the purpose of the P_** Stored procedures auto created by Azure Synapse?

Examples:

P_7310_2548f2a539f248d992d9059d9682bbd9_Launcher

P_7310_2548f2a539f248d992d9059d9682bbd9_PreCheck

Answer 1

The P_** stored procedures auto-created by Azure Synapse have specific purposes related to the execution and management of SQL Data Warehouse (now called Azure Synapse Analytics) operations. These stored procedures are internal system procedures that are automatically generated by Azure Synapse and are used for various administrative tasks. They typically have a specific naming pattern starting with "P_" followed by a combination of numbers and letters.

Here are some common purposes of these auto-created stored procedures:

Launcher Stored Procedures: The stored procedures with names like "P_**_Launcher" are responsible for launching and executing specific SQL Data Warehouse operations. They handle tasks such as query execution, parallelism, data movement, and distribution across compute nodes in the Synapse Analytics environment.

PreCheck Stored Procedures: The stored procedures with names like "P_**_PreCheck" are used for pre-check tasks before executing certain operations. These procedures perform validation checks, verification of dependencies, and ensure that all required resources and conditions are met before proceeding with the actual operation.

Metadata Management: Some auto-created stored procedures are involved in managing the metadata associated with the Synapse Analytics environment. They handle tasks such as metadata synchronization, tracking system-level information, and updating internal catalogs.

It's important to note that these auto-created stored procedures are part of the internal workings of the Azure Synapse Analytics platform and are not meant to be manually modified or interacted with directly by users. They are managed and executed by the system to handle various administrative and operational tasks to ensure the smooth functioning of the analytics environment.

As a user, you generally don't need to interact directly with these stored procedures. Instead, you can leverage the high-level functionality and tools provided by Azure Synapse Analytics, such as SQL queries, pipelines, notebooks, and other user interfaces, to perform your data analytics and processing tasks.