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🗞️Welcome to BIPro#91 – Your Weekly Business Intelligence Boost! 🚀

This week, we're diving into cutting-edge developments in data analytics, engineering, and BI.

🔹 New & Noteworthy: Hydrolix’s Apache Spark Connector supercharges Databricks with full-fidelity event data, while SmartXML ETL makes loading XML into MongoDB seamless. Plus, we break down how to securely connect Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) Gen2 to Microsoft Fabric using OneLake Shortcuts.

🔹 Sneak Peek: We preview Amazon SageMaker Unified Studio, a game-changer for unified ML workflows, and explore BULK INSERT in Fabric Data Warehouse, optimizing large-scale data ingestion.

🔹 BI Must-Reads: Deepen your expertise with these top books:

📘 Microsoft Power BI Cookbook – Master Power BI with advanced techniques for data integration, governance, and visualization.

📘 Modern Time Series Forecasting with Python – Explore ML, deep learning, and probabilistic forecasting for time-series data.

📘 Deep Reinforcement Learning Hands-On – Dive into Q-learning, DQNs, and RLHF with hands-on projects using PyTorch.

📘 Polars Cookbook – Unlock high-performance data manipulation with 60+ real-world projects in Python Polars.

📘 Python Feature Engineering Cookbook – Build production-ready pipelines for tabular, transactional, and time-series data.

📘 Data Management Strategy at Microsoft – Learn how Microsoft transformed its data strategy for governance, security, and business impact.

🔹 Hot Topics: Parallelizing NumPy, scaling Sklearn with Dask, and uncovering hidden Python libraries to supercharge your data workflows.

Stay ahead of the curve with the latest innovations, expert insights, and hands-on tutorials. Let’s dive in!

Cheers,

Merlyn Shelley

Growth Lead, Packt

❯❯❯❯ Microsoft Power BI Cookbook: Written by Greg Deckler and Brett Powell, Microsoft Power BI Cookbook (3rd Edition) is a detailed guide for data professionals, covering data integration, Hybrid tables, scorecards, real-time processing, governance, security, and advanced visualization. With step-by-step techniques, it helps you transform raw data into actionable insights using Power BI’s latest innovations.

❯❯❯❯Modern Time Series Forecasting with Python: Written by Manu Joseph and Jeffrey Tackes, Modern Time Series Forecasting with Python (2nd Edition) is a detailed guide for data professionals, covering machine learning, deep learning, transformers, probabilistic forecasting, feature engineering, and ensemble methods. With hands-on techniques, it helps you build, evaluate, and deploy advanced forecasting models using Python, PyTorch, and pandas.

❯❯❯❯ Deep Reinforcement Learning Hands-On: Written by Maxim Lapan, Deep Reinforcement Learning Hands-On (3rd Edition) is a detailed guide to mastering RL, covering Q-learning, DQNs, PPO, RLHF, MuZero, and transformers. With hands-on projects, it helps machine learning professionals build, train, and apply RL models using PyTorch for real-world tasks in gaming, finance, and beyond.

❯❯❯❯ Polars Cookbook: Written by Yuki Kakegawa, Polars Cookbook is a hands-on guide featuring 60+ real-world projects to master data manipulation, transformation, and analysis with Python Polars. Covering advanced querying, performance optimization, and integrations with pandas, PyArrow, and cloud platforms, this book helps data professionals build fast, scalable, and efficient workflows.

❯❯❯❯ Python Feature Engineering Cookbook: Written by Galli, Python Feature Engineering Cookbook (3rd Edition) is a practical guide featuring real-world techniques to craft powerful features for tabular, transactional, and time-series data. Covering imputation, encoding, transformation, feature extraction, and automation, this book helps data professionals build efficient, reproducible, and production-ready feature engineering pipelines.

❯❯❯❯ Data Management Strategy at Microsoft: Written by Aleksejs Plotnikovs, Data Management Strategy at Microsoft is a practical guide to building a data-driven culture and maximizing data’s business value. Covering data strategy, governance, change management, and intellectual property, it provides key insights from Microsoft’s decade-long transformation to help leaders drive impactful data initiatives.

❯❯❯❯ Parallelize NumPy Array Operations for Increased Speed: This blog explores techniques to parallelize NumPy array operations for faster processing, crucial for handling large datasets. It covers OpenMP, NumExpr, Joblib, and Dask, comparing their performance and efficiency. With practical examples, it helps Python users optimize computations and improve data processing speed in machine learning and analytics workflows.

❯❯❯❯ How to Scale Sklearn with Dask: This blog explores how Dask scales Scikit-learn (sklearn) workflows using parallel and distributed computing. It covers data preprocessing, train-test splitting, and model training with Dask’s StandardScaler, train_test_split, and LogisticRegression, demonstrating how to handle large datasets efficiently while maintaining sklearn’s familiar workflow for machine learning practitioners.

❯❯❯❯ 10 Little-Known Python Libraries That Will Make You Feel Like a Data Wizard: This blog introduces 10 lesser-known Python libraries that can enhance data science workflows. Covering tools for data visualization, feature engineering, text processing, ML automation, and scalable computing, it provides practical examples of how these libraries can streamline analysis, improve efficiency, and unlock new possibilities for data professionals.

❯❯❯❯ Using AI to focus on the big picture: This blog explores how Fanatics Betting and Gaming leverages AI to enhance financial operations, featuring insights from CFO Andrea Ellis. It covers AI-driven automation, strategic finance, and decision-making improvements, highlighting how tools like ChatGPT streamline workflows, generate insights faster, and free up time for high-impact strategic work.

❯❯❯❯ Rogo scales AI-driven financial research with OpenAI o1: This blog explores how Rogo leverages OpenAI’s models to transform financial research and analysis for investment banks and private equity firms. By fine-tuning GPT-4o and o1 models, Rogo delivers real-time insights, automated diligence, and collaborative workflows, saving analysts time and enabling data-driven decision-making at scale.

❯❯❯❯ Understanding Bit Manipulation Functions: BIT_COUNT, GET_BIT, and SET_BIT in SQL Server 2022. This blog explores SQL Server 2022’s bit manipulation functions—BIT_COUNT, GET_BIT, and SET_BIT—for efficient binary data handling. It covers counting set bits, retrieving specific bit values, and modifying flags, with practical examples and common pitfalls, helping developers optimize storage, manage flags, and improve performance in complex systems.

❯❯❯❯ How to Develop Solutions with Fabric Data Warehouse: Data Engineering with Fabric. This blog explores developing solutions with Microsoft Fabric Data Warehouse, covering schema creation, data ingestion, and aggregation using T-SQL notebooks and deployment pipelines. It highlights best practices for data engineering, version control, and CI/CD automation, helping teams streamline database development and management in a Fabric environment.

❯❯❯❯ Using Group Managed Service Accounts with SQL Server: This blog explores how to use Group Managed Service Accounts (gMSA) with SQL Server, covering setup, prerequisites, and implementation for Failover Cluster Instances and Always On Availability Groups. It provides PowerShell commands and best practices for secure authentication, automated password management, and enhanced service account control in enterprise environments.

❯❯❯❯ Implementing Vector Datatype with Azure SQL Server: This blog explores implementing a vector database in Azure SQL Server using the new VECTOR data type (preview). It demonstrates storing and querying embeddings with SentenceTransformer, enabling efficient semantic search for unstructured text. Ideal for applications like document retrieval and knowledge management, this guide provides a step-by-step implementation with Python and SQL.

❯❯❯❯ Redis as a Primary Database for Complex Applications: This blog explores using Redis as a primary database for complex applications that require multiple data formats, high performance, and scalability. It covers Redis modules for structured, graph, and search data, persistence methods, cost optimization with Redis on Flash, and scaling through replication and sharding, making it a powerful alternative to traditional databases.

❯❯❯❯ Hydrolix's Apache Spark Connector Unlocks the Power of Databricks for Full-Fidelity Event Data: This blog explores Hydrolix’s new Apache Spark Connector, which enhances Databricks' capabilities for full-fidelity event data. It enables low-latency queries, cost-effective long-term storage, and real-time insights for machine learning, fraud detection, capacity planning, and anomaly detection, unlocking powerful analytics and BI workflows in Databricks.

❯❯❯❯ Build a Data Analytics Platform With Flask, SQL, and Redis: This blog explores building a data analytics platform using Flask, SQL Server, and Redis, focusing on dynamic querying, caching, and scalable architecture. It demonstrates population data analysis, query optimization with Redis caching, and secure database connections, significantly improving performance and response times in Flask-based web applications.

❯❯❯❯ How to Backup SQL Server RDS to an S3 Bucket: This blog explores backing up SQL Server RDS to Amazon S3, using the msdb.dbo.rds_backup_database command. It covers full and differential backups, compression settings, encryption with AWS KMS, and task monitoring, providing a step-by-step guide to securely store and restore SQL Server RDS backups for disaster recovery and data availability.

❯❯❯❯ BULK INSERT in Fabric Data Warehouse (Preview): This blog explores the BULK INSERT statement in Fabric Data Warehouse (Preview), enabling fast and efficient CSV file imports from Azure Data Lake and Blob Storage. It covers performance benchmarks, SQL Server compatibility, and differences from COPY INTO, making it an ideal choice for migrating existing workloads and handling large-scale data ingestion.

❯❯❯❯ Fabric OPENROWSET function (Preview): This blog explores the OPENROWSET function in Fabric Data Warehouse (Preview), enabling direct querying of external files in Azure Data Lake and Blob Storage without ingestion. It covers schema discovery, partitioned dataset querying, query-time transformations, and ingestion scenarios, making it a powerful tool for real-time data exploration and flexible data processing.

❯❯❯❯ Optimizing Database Performance in Middleware Applications: This blog explores strategies to optimize database performance in middleware applications, covering parallelism, caching, write batching, request hedging, and connection pooling. These techniques help reduce latency, improve scalability, and enhance system efficiency, ensuring that middleware can handle high traffic, real-time processing, and complex data aggregation effectively.

❯❯❯❯ Unlocking Local AI: Build RAG Apps Without Cloud or API Keys. This tutorial covers how to build a local retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) application using Chipper, an open-source framework that eliminates cloud dependencies and API keys. It walks through setting up a self-contained RAG system with document ingestion, vector embedding storage, retrieval mechanisms, and local LLM integration via Ollama. The guide includes step-by-step instructions on installation, indexing documents, querying data, and running Chipper as an AI assistant, providing a private and efficient AI-powered workflow.

❯❯❯❯ Git Tags vs AWS Tags: A Tag-Tastic Showdown! This article humorously compares Git Tags and AWS Tags, highlighting their differences in purpose, usage, and consequences when ignored. Git Tags serve as historical markers for software versions, making debugging and releases easier, while AWS Tags help organize cloud resources, track costs, and prevent accidental deletions. The showdown covers real-world reactions, best practices, advanced tagging techniques, and the existential crisis of tagging. Whether managing code history or cloud expenses, proper tagging can prevent future confusion and chaos.

❯❯❯❯ Loading XML into MongoDB: This guide shows how to load XML into MongoDB using SmartXML ETL, avoiding complex parsing scripts. It covers defining extraction rules, optimizing stored data, and setting up a Flask API for insertion. SmartXML automates ETL, transforming XML into structured JSON for efficient MongoDB storage.

❯❯❯❯ Advanced Calendar Heat Maps in Tableau (No More Workarounds!) This tutorial teaches you how to create advanced calendar heat maps in Tableau using map layers for a dynamic, clean, and customizable design. It covers common pitfalls, step-by-step instructions, and interactive dashboards, helping you build better visualizations without traditional limitations or workarounds.

❯❯❯❯ Foundational blocks of Amazon SageMaker Unified Studio: An admin’s guide to implement unified access to all your data, analytics, and AI: This guide explains how to implement Amazon SageMaker Unified Studio for unified access to data, analytics, and AI. It covers the foundational building blocks, admin roles, infrastructure deployment, access control, and project management, helping administrators set up and manage a governed machine-learning environment effectively.

❯❯❯❯ How Wisso embedded analytics in modern applications and cut BI costs by 80% with Amazon QuickSight: This post explores how Wisso integrated Amazon QuickSight into a kitchen management application, cutting BI costs by 80% while enhancing scalability and user experience. It details the migration process, architecture, dashboard functionality, and business impact, improving food safety, waste tracking, and operational efficiency.

❯❯❯❯ How can I decide which protection method to use to protect my sensitive data in Fabric? This guide compares Microsoft Purview Protection Policies and Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies for securing sensitive data in Fabric. It explains when to use each, how they restrict access, and how they can be combined to enforce security while ensuring compliance across your organization.

❯❯❯❯ Private ADLS Gen2 access made easy with OneLake Shortcuts: a step-by-step guide. This guide explains how to securely connect Azure Data Lake Storage (ADLS) Gen2 to Microsoft Fabric using OneLake Shortcuts and Trusted Workspace Access. It provides a step-by-step walkthrough to configure private access, reduce data duplication, and enhance Power BI performance with Direct Lake mode.

❯❯❯❯ Govern your data in SQL database in Microsoft Fabric with protection policies in Microsoft Purview: This guide explains how Microsoft Purview’s protection policies enhance data security in Microsoft Fabric SQL databases. It details how these policies override user permissions based on sensitivity labels, restricting access and write capabilities while ensuring compliance with organizational governance and security requirements.

We’ve got more great things coming your way, see you soon!