External Tables support- polybase

Question

Hello, Does Azure SQL Database (general vcore pricing model) support polybase to query data from blob storage account's parquet files ? Work env has SQL DB and my idea is to write old data into azure blob as parquet files and leverage external tables to query them back. Tried to enable polybase and was unsuccessful, seams this feature isn't supported yet for vcore pricing model

1. wanted to reconfirm if my understanding about this right?.
2. What is the next best option/idea around external tables consumption?.

Answer 1

Hi aK, PolyBase for Azure SQL Database with the general vCore pricing model doesn't support querying parquet files directly from Azure Blob Storage. A workaround is to use Azure Synapse Link for Azure SQL Database, enabling seamless querying of data stored in Azure Synapse Analytics (formerly SQL Data Warehouse). Alternatively, you can consider using Azure Data Factory to orchestrate data movement from Blob Storage to SQL Database and querying the data. Refer the below Microsoft Learn Link to more further details , https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sql/relational-databases/polybase/polybase-guide?view=sql-server-ver16 Regards,
Saravanan Ganesan.