Clarification on difference between Dedicated SQL Pool and Azure Synaspe Analytics (formerly SQL DW)

Question

Hi Everyone,

We have proposed Azure Synapse Analytics (formerly SQL DW) standalone service as Data warehouse stack for one of the project before 6 months by referring the Microsoft Azure blogs.
Now in Microsoft blogs they are referring Azure Synapse Analytics (formerly SQL DW) as Dedicated SQL pool and I can see only Dedicated SQL pool service separately in Azure portal.
As per my understanding Azure Synapse Analytics(Workspace) has inbuilt Dedicated SQL Pool Service. For the Stand alone Data Ware house service we have Dedicated SQL Pool.

Can any one help me to understand the below questions:

1. Is Dedicated SQL Pool and Azure Synapse Analytics (formerly SQL DW) are same. If yes, when was the naming convention happened.
2. The main difference between Dedicated SQL Pool service standalone and Azure Synapse Analytics(Workspace) inbuilt Dedicated SQL pool service.

Please share any related reference links to understand more on this topics if available.

Thanks in Advance:)

Answer 1

Hello @Rachana Ramya ,

Welcome to the Microsoft Q&A platform.

Is Dedicated SQL Pool and Azure Synapse Analytics (formerly SQL DW) are same. If yes, when was the naming convention happened.

On November fourth 2019, we announced Azure Synapse Analytics, the next evolution of Azure SQL Data Warehouse. Azure Synapse is a limitless analytics service that brings together enterprise data warehousing and Big Data analytics. It gives you the freedom to query data on your terms, using either serverless on-demand 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 business intelligence and machine learning needs.

Reference: Azure SQL Data Warehouse is now Azure Synapse Analytics

The main difference between Dedicated SQL Pool service standalone and Azure Synapse Analytics(Workspace) inbuilt Dedicated SQL pool service.

Azure Synapse Analytics is an analytics service that brings together enterprise data warehousing and Big Data analytics. Dedicated SQL pool (formerly SQL DW) refers to the enterprise data warehousing features that are available in Azure Synapse Analytics.

Dedicated SQL pool (formerly SQL DW) represents a collection of analytic resources that are provisioned when using Synapse SQL. The size of a dedicated SQL pool (formerly SQL DW) is determined by Data Warehousing Units (DWU).

Once your dedicated SQL pool is created, you can import big data with simple PolyBase T-SQL queries, and then use the power of the distributed query engine to run high-performance analytics. As you integrate and analyze the data, dedicated SQL pool (formerly SQL DW) will become the single version of truth your business can count on for faster and more robust insights.

For more details, refer What is dedicated SQL pool (formerly SQL DW) in Azure Synapse Analytics? and Explore the Azure Synapse Analytics documentation.

Hope this helps. Do let us know if you any further queries.

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Answer 2

Good clarification here: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-synapse-analytics-blog/what-s-the-difference-between-azure-synapse-formerly-sql-dw-and/ba-p/3597772