The June 2020 release of Azure Data Studio is now available
The June release of Azure Data Studio is now available. Download Azure Data Studio and review the release notes to get started.
Note: After downloading Azure Data Studio, say Yes to enabling preview features so that you can use extensions.
Azure Data Studio is a multi-database, cross-platform desktop environment for data professionals using the family of on-premises and cloud data platforms on Windows, MacOS, and Linux. To learn more, visit our GitHub.
The key highlights to cover this month include:
- Azure Data Studio to Azure Portal integration.
- New Notebook improvements.
- Machine Learning extension improvements.
- Announcing SQL Assessment API extension.
- Added support for MongoDB and Teradata for Data Virtualization extension.
- Bug fixes.
For a list of complete updates, refer to the Azure Data Studio release notes.
Azure Data Studio to Azure Portal integration
As we continue to support Azure Data services, our customers want the ability to easily launch into Azure Portal from Azure Data Studio. With the June release of Azure Data Studio, this is now possible.
After you sign in with your Azure account, you can select an Azure SQL Database or Azure Postgres Database and can now right-click on the database to have the option to Open in Azure Portal. This will take you directly to the database page in the portal.
In addition, users can connect to the resource from the Azure view and also have the option to connect from portal in the Servers view. These experiences provides flexibility for the user to easily interact with the portal.
Try it out and let us know if you have additional requests as we continue to make investments to launch between Azure Data Studio and Azure Portal.
New Notebook improvements
When you download the latest release, you will see that your Notebooks have a new look. The June release includes several features to improve first time experiences.
Improved notebook toolbar
We have simplified the look and feel of our Notebooks. No functionality was taken away, but the interface is focused on reducing text and using icons to cleanly display actions for a notebook.
New edit toolbar
Users in the past have brought up that the edit state of notebook cells can be confusing. With this new edit toolbar, users can easily know when they are in edit mode and free up actions like double-click when in read-only mode. Adding this new toolbar also makes it easier to add new cells while also reducing whitespace in between cells for a cleaner overall look.
In addition, we have moved the additional actions from the right of the cell into the 3 dots in the edit toolbar. This helps with the spacing of your notebook to provide a cleaner look to context actions.
Python dependencies wizard UI improvements
As announced last month, the Python dependencies wizard makes it easier to select and download the Python dependencies you need for notebook kernels you need to use in the product. With this release, we added some fit and finish UI improvements to help users take full advantage of this experience.
Machine Learning extension now supports Azure SQL Managed Instance
We have a new update to the Machine Learning Extension (preview) for Azure Data Studio. This update includes support for Azure SQL Managed Instance to make predictions and to the import or view models capability. Here’s the compatibility matrix of the platform that the machine learning extension supports:
| Capabilities | SQL Server 2019 | Azure SQL Edge | Azure SQL MI |
| Manage Packages in databases | Yes | N/A | No |
| Make Predictions | No | Yes | Yes (new) |
| Import or View models | No | Yes | Yes (new) |
| Create a notebook | Yes | Yes | Yes |
To learn more about this extension, see the machine learning extension for Azure Data Studio.
Added support for MongoDB and Teradata for Data Virtualization extension
The Data Virtualization extension for Azure Data Studio is now updated with more functionality and a new logo. This update allows you to use the data virtualization wizard to virtualize MongoDB and Teradata data sources into your SQL Server. This new functionality is available for SQL Server 2019 instances running CU5 or later.
To install the extension, search for Data Virtualization in the extension viewlet in Azure Data Studio and click install.
Here’s a quick illustration to show you how to find the extension and use it to virtualize your data sources.
Announcing SQL Assessment API extension
SQL Assessment API is a solution for the evaluation of your SQL Server for best practices. Until now, it has not had a UI to use it, it has only been provided as cmdlets within the PowerShell SqlServer module and a set of methods of SMO. With this release, we are presenting the first preview version of the SQL Assessment extension.
To acquire this extension, search for ‘sql server assessment’ in Azure Data Studio Marketplace and install it. After installation, the extension will add a new tab to the server dashboard. Make sure you have Enable Preview Features checked in the ADS settings, otherwise you won’t see the SQL Assessment tab as the extension is in preview.
This extension doesn’t currently reveal all the features of SQL Assessment API, including the most demanded one-rule customization, but it already gives rules and recommendations by the SQL Server Team out-of-the-box. We’ll be enhancing the functionality of the extension with new releases, and customization possibilities along with reporting are on top of our backlog.
What you can already do with the extension:
- Assess a SQL Server instance and its databases with built-in rules (Invoke Assessment).
- Get a list of all built-in rules applicable to an instance and its databases (view applicable rules).
- Export assessment results and list of applicable rules as a script to further store it in a SQL table.
Bug fixes
If you would like to help make Azure Data Studio a great product, share any feedback or report issues through our Issues page. Our engineering team is regularly going through the untriaged issues and assigning issues into different monthly milestones so that you know we are working on it. Your votes on issues help us prioritize.
A full list of bug fixes for the June release can be found here.
Contact us
If you have any feature requests or issues, please submit to our GitHub issues page. For any questions, feel free to comment below or tweet us @AzureDataStudio.
