R and Python drive SQL Server 2017 into machine learning
- by 7wData
Microsoft last week announced a wave of new features for its data platform, along with the SQL Server 2017 name and what Microsoft calls a “production quality” beta release. Other important changes include a new containerized deployment model for databases, which simplifies installation on Windows and Linux.
But it was SQL Server’s new Machine Learning tools that grabbed my attention.
Machine Learning remains one of Microsoft’s big themes for 2017, and it’s an important segment of SQL Server 2017. Mixing code and data has always been part of SQL Server, first with T-SQL, then with the Azure-focused U-SQL, which extended T-SQL with C# elements. SQL Server 2016 added support for embedded R code, and SQL Server 2017 continues that evolution by improving its support for R and adding Python. (By renaming SQL Server 2016’s R Services to Machine Learning Services in SQL Server 2017, Microsoft has made clear where it’s aiming its SQL tools.)
Including R and Python in SQL Server works well for both the existing SQL Server audience and for data scientists who are unlikely to have experience with T-SQL. The two languages have become important data science tools, with statistical analysis baked deep into their DNA. R remains clearly focused on statistical analysis, while Python adds statistical tools to a popular and flexible scripting language.
With R aimed at statistical analysis experts, Python is perhaps the easiest on-ramp to analytical programming for the rest of us, especially with a wide choice of relevant packages that add new data analysis features to a familiar language.
With Python inside SQL Server, you can bring existing data and code together. Data is accessible directly, so there’s no need to extract query data sets, moving from storage to application. It’s a useful approach, especially where there are issues of data sovereignty and compliance. Your code runs inside the SQL Server security boundaries, triggered by a single call from T-SQL stored procedures.
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