Analyze Azure Synapse Data in R

Access Azure Synapse data with pure R script and standard SQL on any machine where R and Java can be installed. You can use the CData JDBC Driver for Azure Synapse and the RJDBC package to work with remote Azure Synapse data in R. By using the CData Driver, you are leveraging a driver written for industry-proven standards to access your data in the popular, open-source R language. This article shows how to use the driver to execute SQL queries to Azure Synapse and visualize Azure Synapse data by calling standard R functions.

Install R

You can match the driver's performance gains from multi-threading and managed code by running the multithreaded Microsoft R Open or by running open R linked with the BLAS/LAPACK libraries. This article uses Microsoft R Open 3.2.3, which is preconfigured to install packages from the Jan. 1, 2016 snapshot of the CRAN repository. This snapshot ensures reproducibility.

Load the RJDBC Package

To use the driver, download the RJDBC package. After installing the RJDBC package, the following line loads the package:

Connect to Azure Synapse as a JDBC Data Source

You will need the following information to connect to Azure Synapse as a JDBC data source:

• Driver Class: Set this to cdata.jdbc.azuresynapse.AzureSynapseDriver
• Classpath: Set this to the location of the driver JAR. By default this is the lib subfolder of the installation folder.

The DBI functions, such as dbConnect and dbSendQuery, provide a unified interface for writing data access code in R. Use the following line to initialize a DBI driver that can make JDBC requests to the CData JDBC Driver for Azure Synapse:

You can now use DBI functions to connect to Azure Synapse and execute SQL queries. Initialize the JDBC connection with the dbConnect function.

Connecting to Azure Synapse

In addition to providing authentication (see below), set the following properties to connect to a Azure Synapse database:

• Server: The server running Azure. You can find this by logging into the Azure portal and navigating to Azure Synapse Analytics -> Select your database -> Overview -> Server name.
• Database: The name of the database, as seen in the Azure portal on the Azure Synapse Analytics page.

Authenticating to Azure Synapse

Connect to Azure Synapse using the following properties:

• User: The username provided for authentication with Azure.
• Password: The password associated with the authenticating user.

Built-in Connection String Designer

For assistance in constructing the JDBC URL, use the connection string designer built into the Azure Synapse JDBC Driver. Either double-click the JAR file or execute the jar file from the command-line.

Fill in the connection properties and copy the connection string to the clipboard.

Below is a sample dbConnect call, including a typical JDBC connection string:

Schema Discovery

The driver models Azure Synapse APIs as relational tables, views, and stored procedures. Use the following line to retrieve the list of tables:

Execute SQL Queries

You can use the dbGetQuery function to execute any SQL query supported by the Azure Synapse API:

You can view the results in a data viewer window with the following command:

Plot Azure Synapse Data

You can now analyze Azure Synapse data with any of the data visualization packages available in the CRAN repository. You can create simple bar plots with the built-in bar plot function: