Chapter 3: Exploring the Azure Data Explorer UI

In Chapter 1, Introducing Azure Data Explorer, we introduced the Azure Data Explorer (ADX) Web UI and executed our first query, but we did not explore the various options and panels in detail. In the previous chapter, we focused on configuring and deploying our ADX clusters and databases, but we have not yet started to ingest data to query. In this chapter, we will cover the ADX Web UI in detail and introduce you to data ingestion using a method called one-click ingestion.

Although it is technically possible to run queries and generate visualizations from within the Azure portal, which we will demonstrate in this chapter, the Azure portal can feel distracting and cluttered with all the additional, non-ADX-related menus and options such as creating resources, Cloud Shell, and so forth. The ADX UI is a clean, uncluttered user interface (UI) that allows you to focus on exploring your data and provides options for ingesting data and creating...

Technical requirements

All the examples in this chapter are carried out via the Azure portal and the ADX Web UI. The example queries used can be found at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Scalable-Data-Analytics-with-Azure-Data-Explorer in the Chapter03 directory.

Ingesting the StormEvents sample dataset

In the spirit of keeping the chapter both theoretical and practical, we are going to jump ahead a little and ingest an example dataset that Microsoft provides. Don't worry if you do not understand all the details, as data ingestion will be discussed in Chapter 4, Ingesting Data in Azure Data Explorer.

In the previous chapter, we created our ADX cluster and databases, but we did not ingest any data or create any tables. We are going to use a method called one-click ingestion, which is amazingly simple to use and is a great example of ADX allowing you to focus on exploring your data rather than worrying about the low-level details of ingestion.

As you will recall from Chapter 2, Building Your Azure Data Explorer Environment, the third step in the creation process is to ingest data, as shown in the following screenshot:

Figure 3.1 – Data ingestion

The following sequence of steps will import Microsoft...

Querying data in the Azure portal

The ADX UI can be embedded in any web page as a HyperText Markup Language (HTML) inline frame (iFrame) and, as shown in Figure 3.8, this is how the UI is integrated into the Azure portal. The embedded UI is a lightweight version of the ADX UI that includes the Cluster, Query Editing, and Query Results panels. You cannot create ADX dashboards or ingest data from within the Azure portal, and if you try ingesting data by right-clicking your cluster, you will be redirected to the full web UI (https://dataexplorer.azure.com/). Since the embedded UI is a lightweight version of the ADX Web UI, we will discuss the Cluster, Query Editing, and Query Results panels in the following section, Exploring the ADX Web UI:

Figure 3.8 – Querying data from the Azure portal

Note

As mentioned, the ADX UI can be embedded in any web page as an HTML iFrame. If you are interested in embedding the UI in your own web page, then I recommend you...

Exploring the ADX Web UI

By now, you will be aware that the ADX Web UI can be accessed via https://dataexplorer.azure.com/. Use the same credentials you use to log in to the Azure portal. Once you are logged in, you will see the ADX Web UI, as shown in Figure 3.9:

Figure 3.9 – ADX Web UI

Each of the panels shown in Figure 3.9 is described in more detail here:

1. The header is where you can find access to help documentation, your user account, and some UI configuration settings.
2. In the Navigation panel, unlike the embedded UI in the Azure portal, the Web UI provides two more views: Data and Dashboards. As shown in the following screenshot, the Data view allows you to configure data ingestion using the one-click ingestion method, which we used earlier in the chapter to ingest the sample dataset. We will cover data ingestion in more detail in the next chapter:

Figure 3.10 – Data Management screen

The Query view...

Summary

There you go! That was our introduction to the main features of the ADX UI. In this chapter, we ingested Microsoft's sample dataset using the one-click ingestion method and we learned how to query data from within the Azure portal.

The remainder of the chapter looked at the main panels and features of the ADX Web UI. We saw how the Azure portal uses the embedded UI and that the embedded UI can be embedded in any web page using iFrames. Next, we learned that the Web UI (https://dataexplorer.azure.com/) consists of three main views/windows.

The Data view allows us to ingest data using the one-click ingestion method.

The Query Editor view allows us to write and execute our queries and provides syntax highlighting and Microsoft's IntelliSense.

The Dashboards view allows us to create dashboards based on our queries that we can share with our stakeholders. We will cover dashboards in more detail in Chapter 8, Data Visualization with Azure Data Explorer and Power...