Azure Synapse Power BI: How Swiss Re uses Azure Synapse Analytics with Power BI for faster, deeper and better insight -

Swiss Re selected Azure Synapse Analytics with Power BI for enterprise Analytical & BI solution for faster, more efficient analysis and deeper insights.

After implementing Azure Synapse Analytics with Power BI, it loads data almost 40 percent faster than that of loading data in on-premises system allowing to load fresh data more often.

“This not only saves us time per loading process but enables us to load fresh data more often,” Swiss Re official.

Challenges:

Existing seven-year-old BI system could not deliver insights faster
Because it was was labor-intensive process to work in hard-coded on-premises system to build report .
Adding new data streams is a long, complex, and time-consuming process.

Addressing Challenges: Lead with a market leader:

Swiss Re was aware of that Microsoft as a leader with Power BI as per Gartner report on Business Intelligence.
This led to think for enterprise Analytical & BI solution in combination of Azure Synapse Analytics and Power BI.
As a managed service, Azure Synapse would resolve key challenges Swiss Re faced with its on-premises system

“With Power BI, we are enabling our business users to perform their own advanced analytics cases in ways that simply weren’t possible with our hard-coded system” Swiss Re official.

WHY Swiss Re selected Azure Synapse Analytics?

Azure Synapse was selected after months of testing and evaluation of several competitors.

Scalability: Azure Synapse allows to scale up & down during peaks or loading times.
Robust feature: Availability of capabilities like machine learning and the unified data lake.
Cost Savings:cost evaluating requirements, including consumption, services, and components.
1. Reduce operational costs: Azure components allows Swiss Re to pay for what they use, cutting our operational costs dramatically.
2. Saving another 30 to 40 percent cost: by reserving Azure services in advance, Swiss Re saved 30 to 40 percent on different services.
Better resource planning: For Swiss Re, Azure makes it to understand all services, costs, and usage enables better resource planning
Azure Synapse removed dependencies on old system.

Faster development with Azure:

“We can develop a dashboard for a whole unit in three to five days, compared to months with the old process. That is just an unbelievable jump in efficiency.” Swiss Re official.

Azure Synapse Analytics Architecture Diagram:

Azure Synapse Architecture Components:

Extraction/Ingestion: Azure Data Factory ingest structured, unstructured, and semi-structured data (logs, files, and media) and store in Azure Data Lake Storage.
Transformation: Azure Databricks cleans & transforms unstructured data; It combines them with structured data from operational databases or data warehouses.
Machine learning: Azure Databricks adds scalable machine learning and deep learning techniques.
Data Integration: Native connectors integrate Azure Databricks & Azure Synapse Analytics to access and move data at scale.
Data warehousing & Data Model:
- Azure Synapse Analytics provide the data warehousing and compute environment with massively parallel processing architecture.
- Azure Analysis Services to provides data models for PowerBI consumption.
Root Cause and Raw Data analysis: Power BI uses Azure Databricks for users to do root cause findings & raw data analysis.

At last, user can create & share Power BI reports.

Benefits after implementing Azure Synapse Analytics with Power BI:

Faster loading time: it loads data almost 40 percent faster than that of loading data in on-premises system.
Efficient & deeper insights: it makes faster, more efficient analysis and deeper insights.
Higher frequency: it enables to load fresh data more often due to faster loading time.
Improve efficiency: it enables to develop a dashboard for a whole unit in three to five days